Aphorism Quotes

• I got a note from my father, who said that Success is wonderful, if you don't inhale. That was his own aphorism, and I think it's the very best thing he could have said to me or anyone else on the subject.

  Sam Waterston

  Success, Father, Thinking

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• 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.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Men, Abstract, Portions

  Aids to Reflection "Introductory Aphorisms" (1825)

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

  F. H. Bradley

  Writing, Heart, Blood

  "Aphorisms". Book by F. H. Bradley No. 25, 1930.

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• An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Art, Literature, World

  "Aphorisms from the Athenaeum" by Friedrich Schlegel, #206, 1798.

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• How many of us have been attracted to reason; first learned to think, to draw conclusions, to extract a moral from the follies of life, by some dazzling aphorism.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Truth, Thinking, Firsts

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• How many of us have been first attracted to reason, first learned to think, to draw conclusions, to extract a moral from the follies of life, by some dazzling aphorism from Rochefoucauld or La Bruyere.

  Bill Vaughan

  Thinking, Firsts, Moral

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

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Airplane, Aeroplanes

  1937 The Gift, ch.1.

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

  Anatole Broyard

  Teeth, Sticks, Novel

  "Books of the Times", New York Times, June 6, 1984.

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

  Paul Eldridge

  Stuff, Endeavor, Universe

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

  Karl Kraus

  Writing, Literature, Should

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & one-and-a-half truths: selected aphorisms”

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• The aphorism, the apothegm, in which I am the first among the Germans to be a master, are the forms of “eternity”; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book — what everyone else does not say in a book.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Book, Ambition, Doe

  "Twilight of the Idols".

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• Aphorisms are the true form of the universal philosophy.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Philosophy, Literature, Form

  "Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms (A in Selected Aphorisms from the Athenaeum (1798) #259)". Book by Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel translated by Ernst Behler and Roman Struc, 1968.

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

  Elias Canetti

  Inspirational, Wells, Great Writers

  The Human Province "1943" (1978) (translation by Joachim Neugroschel)

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

  Karl Kraus

  Truth, Half, Half Truth

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• The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

  Mason Cooley

  Laughter, Literature, Sometimes

  "City Aphorisms: Sixth Selection". Book by Mason Cooley, 1989.

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  The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Friendship

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.331, Princeton University Press

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• 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.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Teeth, Century, Worn

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2012). “Human, All-Too-Human: Parts One and Two”, p.296, Courier Corporation

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• The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Expression, Excellence

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.76

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• APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Wisdom

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.12, 谷月社

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

  Emile M. Cioran

  Midst, Known

  Emile M. Cioran (1999). “All Gall is Divided: Gnomes and Apothegms”, p.7, Arcade Publishing

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• 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."

  John Keats

  Truth, Tests, Ridicule

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• 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

  Wine, Yield, Mad

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2356, Delphi Classics

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

  Stefan Kanfer

  Privacy, Posing, Observation

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• Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 153

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Philosophical, Evil, Good And Evil

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  Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Cute, God

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.9262, Delphi Classics

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