Quotes About Aphorisms

Nor do apophthegms only serve for ornament and delight, but also for action and civil use, as being the edge-tools of speech which cut and penetrate the knots of business and affairs: for occasions have their revolutions, and what has once been advantageously used may be so again, either as an old thing or a new one.

But as young men, when they knit and shape perfectly, do seldom grow to a further stature, so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and observations, it is in growth: but when it once is comprehended in exact methods, it may perchance, be further polished and illustrate and accommodated for use and practice; but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.

The hunter for aphorisms on human nature has to fish in muddy water, and he is even condemned to find much of his own mind.

fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege.

Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time writing essays.

Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.

I compose most of my tweets with care, as if they were aphorisms - they are not usually dashed-off. Sometimes I'm surprised by the high, poetic quality of Twitter - it lends itself to a surreal sort of self-expression.

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy.

Proverbs are potted wisdom.

Apothegms are the wisdom of the past condensed for the instruction and guidance of the present.

Music-hall songs provide the dull with wit, just as proverbs provide them with wisdom.

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.

Epigrams delight us into wisdom.

As child, when the elders spoke their wise words, it only echoes in my ears. As an adult, I have crystal clear insight to the wise aphorisms by the elderly.

Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a general maxim.... If, like those of Rochefoucault, it be sparkling and whimsical, it may make an excellent motto for an essay. But few, indeed, of the many wise apophthegms which have been uttered from the time of the Seven Sages of Greece to that of Poor Richard have prevented a single foolish action.

What are your Axioms, and Categories, and Systems, and Aphorisms? Words, words.... Be not the slave of Words...

In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak; but for that one must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks – and those who are addressed, tall and lofty.

On Saturday, they will have an evening of…aphorisms. Everyone must think of an aphorism on the subject of suffering and pleasure.

Proverbs are potted wisdom.

What flowers are to gardens, spices to food, gems to a garment, and stars to heaven; such are proverbs interwoven in speech.

Proverbs are the literature of reason.

The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other very well.

There is more poison in aphorisms than in painted candy; but it is of a less seductive kind.

In private, with pencil on scratch paper, he labored over aphorisms that he later delivered in spontaneous-seeming lectures: Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.