Aphorism Quotes

Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth.

There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.

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

We endeavor to stuff the universe into the gullet of an aphorism.

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.

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

Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.

An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.

A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time, and is not worn away by all the centuries, although it serves as food for every epoch.

The aphorism is cultivated only by those who have known fear in the midst of words, that fear of collapsing with all the words.

APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.

Writing an upbeat aphorism is a temptation, but decorum forbids.

An aphorism is a personal observation inflated into a universal truth, a private posing as a general.

Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 153

We have oftener than once endeavoured to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to Shaftesbury, which however we can find nowhere in his works, that "ridicule is the test of truth."

If we couldn't laugh at ourselves, that would be the end of everything.

The trick to writing an aphorism is to place a period at the point where you're inclined to say, "in other words.

The striking aphorism requires a stricken aphorist.

An aphorism is true where it has fixed the impression of a genuine experience.

Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry.

My premise is that the popular aphorism that 'all religions are fundamentally the same and only superficially different' simply is not true. It is more correct to say that all religions are, at best, superficially similar but fundamentally different.

Most of my writing consists of an attempt to translate aphorisms into continuous prose.

An aphorism should be like a burr: sting, ... and leave a little soreness.

Belief in form, but disbelief in content - that's what makes an aphorism charming.

'Character," says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms - character is destiny'.

One of the aphorisms occurred to me now and I wrote it under the picture: "Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept." That was clear to me now.

An aphorism is a generalization of sorts, and our present-day writers seem more at home with the particular.

Santayana's aphorism must be reversed: too often it is those who can remember the past who are condemned to repeat it.

My best definition of a nerd: someone who asks you to explain an aphorism

An aphorism is a single sentence that totally exhausts its subject.

One cannot dictate an aphorism to a typist. It would take too long.

An apt aphorism half kills, half immortalizes.

I have forgotten my umbrella.

In an aphorism, aptness counts for more than truth.

Aphorisms may equivocate, but they must not wobble.

The haiku lets meaning float; the aphorism pins it down.

Finding a thought for an aphorism is not hard. Putting a kink in its tail is the hard part.

Aphorisms have never seduced anybody, but they have fooled some into considering themselves worldly-wise.

The aphorism is a slippery plaything.

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

Aphorisms are not true or false, but pointed or flat.

Aphorisms are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling.

An aphorism that does not score is just one more sentence.

Beware of finding what you're looking for. A favorite aphorism he often used.

I believe aphorisms are best when first read in the wild, free from the confines of any categories.

To be thoroughly modern, an aphorism should trail off vaguely rather than coming to a point.

An aphorism is not an aphorism unless you know what it means.

The aphorism: a platitude that swerves, or slides all the way around.

An aphorism is a generalization, therefore not modern.

A sentimental aphorism is even more a surprise than a hard- boiled sonnet.