The word aphorism
(literally "distinction" or "definition", from the Greek:
αφορισμός, aphorismós ap-horizein, "from/to bound")
denotes an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and easily memorable form.
- Quotes about Aphroisms
- Habits count for more than maxims, because habit is a living maxim, becomes flesh and instinct. To reform one's maxims is nothing: it is but to change the title of the book.
The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers.
W. H. Auden (1907–1973), Anglo-American poet. Foreword, The Viking Book of Aphorisms (1962)
Aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of the pith and heart of sciences; for discourse of illustration is cut off; recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and order is cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off. So there remaineth nothing to fill the aphorisms but some good quantity of observation; and therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to write aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded.
Francis Bacon (1561–1626), English philosopher, statesman and essayist. The Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605), Second Book, XI–XX p. 5
Aphorisms, representing a knowledge broken, do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods, carrying the show of a total, do secure men, as if they were at furthest.
- Francis Bacon, The Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605), Second Book XI–XX, p. 5
‘Aphorizein’, from which we get the word ‘aphorism’, means to retreat to such a distance that a horizon of thought is formed which never again closes on itself.
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007), French philosopher and writer. Cool Memories V (2006)
APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.
The flabby wine-skin of his brain
Yields to some pathologic strain,
And voids from its unstored abysm
The driblet of an aphorism.
"The Mad Philosopher," 1697
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?), American writer. The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is ever condemned to find much of his own mind.
It [an aphorism or epigram] should sound like something that somebody might say, but it should be something that nobody has ever said before.
Ashley Brilliant (b. 1933), American cartoonist, epigrammatist and publisher. From his interview for the Wall Street Journal, 6th January 1992. (He commentating here on his "Pot-Shots" postcards.)
There is something anachronistic about the very idea of aphorisms or maxims. Contemporary culture isn’t stately enough, or stable enough, to support them.
Anatole Broyard (1920–1990), American literary critic. ‘Wisdom of Aphorisms’, New York Times, 30th April 1983
Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader’s teeth.
- Anatole Broyard. ‘Books of the Times’, New York Times, June 6th 1984
The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other very well.
Elias Canetti (1905–1994), Jewish-Bulgarian writer. The Human Province (1942–1972)
Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.
In an aphorism, aptness counts for more than truth.
Mason Cooley (1927–2002), American literary academic and aphorist. City Aphorisms, Fourth Selection (1987)
Aphorisms are not true or false, but pointed or flat.
- Mason Cooley. City Aphorisms, Fourth Selection (1987)
Aphorisms have never seduced anybody, but they have fooled some into considering themselves worldly-wise.
- Mason Cooley. City Aphorisms, Twelfth Selection (1993)
An aphorism that does not score is just one more sentence.
- Mason Cooley. City Aphorisms, Thirteenth Selection (1994)
I’ve always felt aphorisms as reminders, gongs–in–words.
- Olivia Dresher (b.1945), American literary editor, publisher and poet. 'Aphorisms by Olivia Dresher', from, All Aphorisms, All the Time, a blog on James Geary's website, 24th February 2009
An aphorism is the last link in a long chain of thought.
Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.
James Fenton (b. 1949), English poet, journalist and literary critic. From his column in The Times (UK) newspaper, 21st February 1985
There is a difference between being witty – quick with the repartee and the insight – and having an aptitude for aphorism.
- James Fenton. The Guardian (UK) newspaper, 17th February 2007
To have the last word, to be beyond contradiction, to inhabit a world of assertion and paradox – it may not be every aphorist’s ambition, but it seems to come with the turf.
- James Fenton. The Guardian, 17th February 2007
Aphorisms are literature’s hand luggage. Light and compact they fit easily into the overhead compartment of your brain and contain everything you need to get through a rough day at the office or a dark night of the soul.
James Geary (b. 1962), American journalist, author and aphorist. The World in a Phrase (2005), Ch. 1
For the aphorist, I think, seeing something and saying something are the same thing.
- James Geary, ‘Anatomy of an Aphorism’, from, All Aphorisms, All The Time, a blog on James Geary’s website, 16th October 2008
Aphorisms are short, pithy sayings; they are individual passages that can be recited and remain intelligible out of context; they can stand on their own without further support.
- Dr. Louis Groarke, Canadian philosopher. Philosophy as Inspiration: Blaise Pascal and the Epistemology of Aphorisms. Essay in, Poetics Today, Fall 2007
Without losing ourselves in a wilderness of definitions, we can all agree that the most obvious characteristic of an aphorism, apart from its brevity, is that it is a generalization. It offers a comment on some recurrent aspect of life, couched in terms which are meant to be permanently and universally applicable.
John Gross, English journalist, writer and literary critic. ‘Introduction’, The Oxford Book of Aphorisms (1983)
But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), English poet and lexicographer. The Rambler, No. 175, 19th November 1751
Pointed axioms and acute replies fly loose about the world, and are assigned successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate.
- Samuel Johnson. ‘Waller’, Lives of the Poets (1779-81)
I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.
- Samuel Johnson. Journal entry for 16th August 1773 in, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson LL.D., by James Boswell (1785)
Genuine bon mots surprise those from whose lips they fall, no less than they do those who listen to them.
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824), French moralist and essayist. Pensées (1842)
An aphorism never coincides with the truth: it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.
Karl Kraus (1874–1936), Austrian writer. Half–Truths and One–and–a–Half Truths, Translated by Harry Zohn (1990)
Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time writing essays.
- Karl Kraus. Half–Truths and One–and–a–Half Truths, translated by Harry Zohn (1990)
One cannot dictate an aphorism to a typist. It would take too long.
- Karl Kraus. Half–truths and One–and–a–Half Truths, translated by Harry Zohn (1990)
Aphorism: what is worth quoting from the soul’s dialogue with itself.
Yahia Lababidi (b. 1973), Egyptian-Lebanise essayist and poet. Signposts to Elswhere (2008)
There is always something positive about the wisdom in aphorisms; jokes are not always that optimistic.
John Lloyd (b. 1951), British television comedy writer and producer. 'On the First Ever International Aphorism Symposium', from, All Aphorisms, All the Time, a blog on James Geary website, 11th March 2008
Aphorism or maxim, let us remember that this wisdom of life is the true salt of literature; that those books, at least in prose, are most nourishing which are most richly stored with it; and that is one of the great objects, apart from the mere acquisition of knowledge, which men ought to seek in the reading of books.
John Morley (1838-1923), 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, British statesman and writer. Aphorisms (1887) p. 11
Beware of cultivating this delicate art.
- John Morley (1838–1923), British statesman and writer. Aphorisms (1887) p. 39
There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.
Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), Russian-American novelist and poet. The Gift (1937), Ch. 1, from the English edition, published by G. P. Putnam’s Son (1963)
A good aphorism is too hard for the teeth of time and is not eaten up by all the centuries, even though it serves as food for every age: hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which—like salt—is always prized, but which never loses its savor as salt does.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. Mixed Opinions and Maxims, aphorism 168, 'In Praise of Aphorisms' (1879)
Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms wants not to be learned but to be learned by heart.
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, First Part, 'On Reading and Writing' (1883)
An aphorism, honestly stamped and molded, has not yet been "deciphered" once we have read it over; rather, its exegesis—for which an art of exegesis is needed—has only just begun.
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. On the Genealogy of Morals, 'Preface', Section 8 (1887)
Behind every aphoristic assertion there should be the watermark of a question.
Gregory Norminton, British Novelist and academic. From his Blog, ‘How to be Awake,’ 18th May 2010
They’ve [aphorisms] got a real form to them. They’re not very popular or fashionable in Anglophone culture – they are assertions, so they can sound hubristic: you sometimes find yourself thinking, "Who the hell am I to say this?" But then, why not? You expect people to disagree. The point is to stir things up.
Don Paterson (b, 1963), Scottish poet and musician. From his interview with Mark Seaton for The Guardian, 21st January 2004
The aphorism is only useful in small measured doses—but even then it’s only a kind of intellectual placebo, prompting ideas the reader should have prompted in themselves anyway.
- Don Paterson, The Blind Eye: A Book of Late Advice (2007)
Despite our attempts to imbue them with some flavor, any flavor—aphorisms all turn out so...generic; they all sound as if they were delivered by the same disenfranchised, bad-tempered minor deity.
- Don Paterson, Best Thought, Worst Thought: On Art, Sex, Work, and Death. (2008)
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
George Santayana (1863–1952), Spanish-American novelist, essayist and poet. Little Essays, Drawn From the Writings of George Santayana, compiled and edited by Logan Pearsall Smith (1920)
An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.
Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.
Friedrich von Schlegel (1772–1829), German philosopher. From Aphorism 259, Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798)
An aphorism has been defined as a proverb coined in a private mint, and the definition is a happy one; for the aphorism, like the proverb, is the result of observation, and however private and superior the mint, the coins it strikes must, to find acceptance, be made of current metal.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946), American born essayist and critic. ‘Introduction’, A Treasury of English Aphorisms (1943), p. 7
It is in the nature of aphoristic thinking to be always in a state of concluding; a bid to have the final word is inherent in all powerful phrase-making.
Susan Sontag (1933–2004), American essayist. 'Writing Itself: On Roland Barthes', Introduction, Barthes: Selected Writings (1982)
Aphorisms are rogue ideas.
An aphorism is not an argument; it is too well-bred for that.
Aphoristic thinking is impatient thinking
Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773), British statesman, man of letters. Letter to his son, 15th January 1753. The Letters of the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son (1774–5)
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