Quotes About Aphorisms

Apothegms form a short cut to much knowledge.

I lost many literary battles the day I read 'Their Eyes Were Watching God.' I had to concede that occasionally aphorisms have their power. I had to give up the idea that Keats had a monopoly on the lyrical.

Euphonic and harmonious expressions, forcible and just expressions, profound and comprehensive expressions, and especially apt and witty expressions, each have their specific influence upon different minds, and their common influence upon all minds.... It is therefore high time our most valuable aphorisms and paragraphs were put in order for frequent perusal, and for handy reference, as the circumstances of life call up subjects.

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

Good sayings are like pearls strung together.

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

This is the point where the knowing, irony-infused author laughs along with his readers about his time among the aphorisms, how he was once so gullible and needy that he drank deeply of such weak and fruity Kool-Aid. That's some other book. Slogans saved my life. All of them--the dumb ones, the preachy ones, the imperatives, the cliches, the injunctives, the gooey, Godly ones, the shameless, witless ones.

Patience is a virtue, you tell yourself. Good things come to those who wait. You never before realized how many aphorisms are just attempts to convince the agitated not to act.

The only way to read a book of aphorisms without being bored is to open it at random and, having found something that interests you, close the book and meditate.

Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.

Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. 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.

Whether or not you've studied art history, you may have heard some of Vasari's stories—part historical urban legend, part morality tale, his great collective biography spun visual aphorisms that endure to this day.

Proverbs were bright shafts in the Greek and Latin quivers...

Attend to me, Sancho, I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and seasonably applied; but to be for ever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar.

Too much truth is the style of a drunken master, intoxicated with the sweet wine of philosophical poetry, a comical third eye, whose power of thought will break stone and ice. Developed dexterity of thought, manipulates the fighting techniques of aphorisms leaving no chance.

Too much truth is the style of a drunken master, intoxicated with the sweet wine of philosophical poetry, a comical third eye, whose power of thought will break stone and ice. Developed dexterity of thought, manipulates the fighting techniques of aphorisms leaving no chance. Loneliness enhances the force of the blow, its depth of thought, piercing consciousness and subconsciousness.

Too much truth is the style of a drunken master, intoxicated with the sweet wine of philosophical poetry, a comical third eye, whose power of thought will break the stone of stupidity and the ice of indifference. Developed dexterity of thought, manipulates the fighting techniques of the aphorisms of a drunken master, leaving no chance. Loneliness enhances the force of the blow, its depth of thought, piercing consciousness and subconsciousness, piercing the infinity of time.

All the aphorisms of Zarathustra And the virgin soil of paradoxes. Elegantly subtle sophistries- All turned into blood.