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Santayana's aphorism must be reversed: too often it is those who can remember the past who are condemned to repeat it.
Sep 10, 2025
The aphorism "Whatever is, is right," would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence that nothing that ever was, was wrong.
The healthy know not of their health, but only the sick: this is the physician's aphorism, and applicable in a far wider sense than he gives it.
One can never be too rich or too thin' is an aphorism attributed to the Duchess of Windsor. Being both rich and thin is a difficult enterprise, indeed almost unprecedented as an ideal. Into the paradoxical gap between the capacity to spend money and the need to eat less steps a brilliant solution: 'light' food. In buying 'light' food we can pay more for what costs less to produce in the first place.
What are the precise characteristics of an epigram it is not easy to define. It differs from a joke, in the fact that the wit of the latter dies in the words, and cannot therefore be conveyed in another language; while an epigram is a wit of ideas, and hence, is translatable. Like aphorisms, songs and sonnets, it is occupied with some single point, small and manageable; but whilst a song conveys a sentiment, a sonnet a poetical, and an aphorism a moral reflection, an epigram expresses a contrast.
I have forgotten my umbrella.
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.
The haiku lets meaning float; the aphorism pins it down.
Aphorisms may equivocate, but they must not wobble.
The lyric deals with love and sorrow, the aphorism with contradiction and deceit.
An aphorism is the last link in a long chain of thought.
Most of my writing consists of an attempt to translate aphorisms into continuous prose.
No aphorism is more frequently repeated in connection with field trials, than that we must ask Nature few questions, or, ideally, one question, at a time. The writer is convinced that this view is wholly mistaken. Nature, he suggests, will best respond to a logical and carefully thought out questionnaire; indeed, if we ask her a single question, she will often refuse to answer until some other topic has been discussed.
My best definition of a nerd: someone who asks you to explain an aphorism
Law cannot reach where enforcement will not follow. —Popular aphorism.
The striking aphorism requires a stricken aphorist.
Belief in form, but disbelief in content - that's what makes an aphorism charming.
We have the highest authority for believing that the meek shall inherit the earth; though I have never found any particular corroboration of this aphorism in the records of Somerset House.
An aphorism is a generalization, therefore not modern.
The history of Western science confirms the aphorism that the great menace to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.
An aphorism is a generalization of sorts, and our present-day writers seem more at home with the particular.
The old aphorisms are basically sound. First impressions are lasting.
The aphorism: a platitude that swerves, or slides all the way around.
An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.
Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.
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.
An aphorism is an extreme synthesis of thesis and antithesis, theory and practice, it's a mixture of intuition and observation, hypothesis and illusions of certainty and probability, history and stupidity.
An aphorism is a mental exercise, psychical, logical, linguistic, spiritual, ritual, emotional and rational, it is a major conceptual and literary activity, a mixture of prose and poetry that conveys, in addition to ideology, sympathy or antipathy.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
I wrote my first two long novels and an anthology of short narratives, when I was a manager of my own jazz bar. There was not enough time to write and I didn't know how to write novels. Therefore, I made written collages of aphorisms and rags.
He who has rejected his demons badgers us to death with his angels
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
Aphorisms know the angles, but not the structure.
The weak can never forgive.
The aphorism wants to be at the same time both main line and off beat.
Desperate times call for desperate measures" is an aphorism which here means "sometimes you need to change your facial expression in order to create a workable disguise." The quoting of an aphorism, such as "It takes a village to raise a child," "No news is good news," and "Love conquers all," rarely indicates that something helpful is about to happen, which is why we provide our volunteers with a disguise kit in addition to helpful phrases of advice.
Be realistic, demand the impossible!
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An ancient Vedic aphorism says, "Infinite flexibility is the secret to immortality." When we cultivate flexibility in or consciousness, we renew ourselves in every moment and reverse the aging process.
There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.
Young people of high school age can actually feel themselves changing. Progress is almost tangible. It's exciting. It stimulates more progress. Nevertheless, growth is not constant and smooth. Erik Erikson quotes an aphorism to describe the formless forming of it. "I ain't what I ought to be. I ain't what I'm going to be, but I'm not what I was.
...there is a celebrated aphorism insisting that the best way to live is to 'work like you don't need the money, dance like nobody is watching, and love like you've never been hurt.'...After years of hearing and reading these lines I have decided to tell the truth: the original version is wrong. There is a grave error in the wording of this adage. The correct version should go as follows: Love like you don't need the money, Work like nobody is watching, Dance like you've never been hurt. See? Doesn't that make more sense?
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.
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.
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.