Best Aphorism Quotes & Sayings

We are generally treated based on how much or little we have, earn, or know - or seem to have, earn, or know. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Love at first sight? Let me just put on my glasses. — Ljupka Cvetanova

Keep trying?
I'd rather keep walking. I mean, whisky is whisky — Ljupka Cvetanova

It takes two to bribe. — Ljupka Cvetanova

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

Nothing holds back human progress as frequently as the misbelief that the words 'impossible' and 'improbable' are synonyms. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

How did Kirchmann understand the worthlessness of jurisprudence ? The answer lies in the aphorism: "Three revisions by the legislator and whole libraries became wastepaper." With a sharp alteration this answer became a slogan:"A stroke of the legislator's pen and whole libraries became wastepaper." Another aphorism in the same vein made the point even more brusquely and less politely: "Positive law turns the jurist into a worm in rotten wood." Kirchmann meant that jurisprudence could never catch up with legislation. Thus our predicament becomes immediately obvious. What remains of a science reduced to annotating and interpreting constantly changing regulations issued by state agencies presumed to be in the best position to know and articulate their true intent? — Carl Schmitt

Hide in the morrow. No one will look for you there. — Ljupka Cvetanova

In women he doesn't trust! He is an atheist. — Ljupka Cvetanova

Love at first life! — Ljupka Cvetanova

My favorite times were spent in his backyard where he and his roommates had "let nature take its course," the weeds towering above our heads. We placed two chairs in the middle of that jungle and discussed what we didn't know we were discussing: What brings a writer and an engineer together? How can we reconcile our diverse interests into a pointed goal, a single aphorism on life? More simply stated: Why are we falling in love? — Megan Rich

I will build the best Potemkin village for you, my love! — Ljupka Cvetanova

My best definition of a nerd: someone who asks you to explain an aphorism — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If Socrates was alive today he would say : I know that I know everything. That's what contemporary philosophers do. — Ljupka Cvetanova

Don't let the devil fool you! Unless he's handsome. — Ljupka Cvetanova

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. — Benjamin Disraeli

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. — Stella Chess

Be a man! Put on a mask. — Ljupka Cvetanova

All Excess is ill: But Drunkenness is of the worst Sort. It spoils Health, dismounts the Mind, and unmans Men: It reveals Secrets, is Quarrelsome, Lascivious, Impudent, Dangerous and Mad. In fine, he that is drunk is not a Man: Because he is so long void of Reason, that distinguishes a Man from a Beast. — William Penn

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

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. — Ronald Fisher

I have a wide circle of friends, wide enough to keep them away from me. — Ljupka Cvetanova

Philosophy, as long as a drop of blood shall pulse in its world-subduing and absolutely free heart, will never grow tired of answering its adversaries with the cry of Epicurus:
"Not the man who denies the gods worshiped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them, is truly impious"
Philosophy makes no secret of it. The confession of Prometheus:
"In simple words, I hate the pack of gods"
is its own confession, its own aphorism against all heavenly and earthly gods who do not acknowledge human self-consciousness as the highest divinity. — Karl Marx

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

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

When you are a child at home alone, you're afraid someone might come; when you are old and at home alone, you're afraid no one will come. — Ljupka Cvetanova

Our parents would not be 'The best parents in the world' (to us) if they were not our parents. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

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. — Ravi Zacharias

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. — William Matthews

The key to happiness is under the doorstep rug. — Ljupka Cvetanova

She described how Camus's aphorism "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" helps her fight back against unproductive feelings of meaninglessness.
If we consider, like Camus, Sisyphus at the foot of his mountain, we can see that he is smiling. He is content in his task of defying the Gods, the journey more important than the goal. To achieve a beginning, a middle, an end, a meaning to the chaos of creation - that's more than any deity seems to manage: But it's what writers do. So I tidy the desk, even polish it up a bit, stick some flowers in a vase and start.
As I begin a novel I remind myself as ever of Camus's admonition that the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. And even while thinking, well, fat chance! I find courage, reach for the heights, and if the rock keeps rolling down again so it does. What the hell, start again. Rewrite. Be of good cheer. Smile on, Sisyphus! — Fay Weldon

I remember another aphorism of my father's, one that he used to say whenever we passed someone pissing openly in the street: add color to life when you can. — Dinaw Mengestu

He is insatiable in love. His wife is a great cook. — Ljupka Cvetanova

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? — Gina Barreca

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

You have the chance to remain silent. Everything you say will be misused. — Ljupka Cvetanova

In search of myself, I have created myself. — Ljupka Cvetanova

What is a normal goal to a young person becomes a neurotic hindrance in old age. - CARL JUNG No wise person ever wanted to be younger. - NATIVE AMERICAN APHORISM — Richard Rohr

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

Please be my friend. — Kevin Mcpherson Eckhoff

Sometimes," he said, summing up the discussion with an aphorism I have never forgotten, "if you find yourself stuck in politics, the thing to do is start a fight--start a fight, even if you do not know how you are going to win it, because it is only when a fight is on, and everything is in motion, that you can hope to see your way through. — Robert Harris

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

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself. — Napoleon Bonaparte

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

Aphorism, n. Predigested wisdom. — Ambrose Bierce

The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom among us is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority... — Thomas Stockman

A sutra is, so to speak, the bare thread of an exposition, the absolute minimum that is necessary to hold it together, unadorned by a single "bead" of elaboration. Only essential words are used. Often, there is no complete sentence-structure. There was a good reason for this method. Sutras were composed at a period when there were no books. The entire work had to be memorized, and so it had to be expressed as tersely as possible. Patanjali's Sutras, like all others, were intended to be expanded and explained. The ancient teachers would repeat an aphorism by heart and then proceed to amplify it with their own comments, for the benefit of their pupils. In some instances these comments, also, were memorized, transcribed at a later date, and thus preserved for us. — Swami Prabhavananda

Big people never scare me. I am a little man. I can easily hide. — Ljupka Cvetanova