Age certainly hadn't conferred any smarts on me. Character maybe, but mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russian writers have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up.
Aphorisms know the angles, but not the structure.
Aphorisms have never seduced anybody, but they have fooled some into considering themselves worldly-wise.
All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character or illustrates an existence.
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.
Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry' is a aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow.
Aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don’t think of until too late.
Beware of finding what you're looking for. A favorite aphorism he often used.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a wise and intuitive counselor available 24/7? You're in luck-you already have one. Your body! Our bodies carry ancient wisdom. We literally live within a temple of intuitive and instinctive wisdom. Sometimes we pay attention and access body wisdom; but unfortunately, the aphorism "Mrs. Smith lived a short distance from her body" is sadly true for many of us.
To be thoroughly modern, an aphorism should trail off vaguely rather than coming to a point.
The young people who come to me in the hope of hearing me utter a few memorable maxims are quite disappointed. Aphorisms are not my forte, I say nothing but banalities.... I listen to them and they go away delighted.
What are your Axioms, and Categories, and Systems, and Aphorisms? Words, words.... Be not the slave of Words.
The trick to writing an aphorism is to place a period at the point where you're inclined to say, "in other words.
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. Hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which always remains highly valued, as salt does, and never becomes stupid like salt.
The best aphorisms are.... portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs.
Finally, to the theme of the respiratory chain, it is especially noteworthy that David Kellin's chemically simple view of the respiratory chain appears now to have been right all along-and he deserves great credit for having been so reluctant to become involved when the energy-rich chemical intermediates began to be so fashionable. This reminds me of the aphorism: 'The obscure we see eventually, the completely apparent takes longer'.
On the last day, when the general examination takes place, there will be no question at all on the text of Aristotle, the aphorisms of Hippocrates, or the paragraphs of Justinian. Charity will be the whole syllabus.
The aphorism is a slippery plaything.
If our planet has seen some eighty billion people it is difficult to suppose hat every individual has had his or her own repertory of gestures. Arithmetically, it is simply impossible. Without the slightest doubt, there are far fewer gestures in the world than there are individuals. That finding leads us to a shocking conclusion: a gesture is more individual than an individual. We could put it in the form of an aphorism: many people, few gestures.
Finding a thought for an aphorism is not hard. Putting a kink in its tail is the hard part.
Aphorisms are not true or false, but pointed or flat.
The quoting of an aphorism, like the angry barking of a dog or the smell of overcooked broccoli, rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen.
The perfect aphorism would achieve classical balance and then immediately upset it.
Despite popular conviction, a writer needn't wear black, be unshaven, sickly and parade around New York's East Village spewing aphorisms and scaring children.
A sentimental aphorism is even more a surprise than a hard- boiled sonnet.
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