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Aphorisms or "Universal Truths"

(171 entries, updated July, 2020)

This is one of the harder collections to describe. What is an aphorism exactly? In simplest terms it is oberservation about life, briefly told, that is true 'more often than not'. It may even be something that is always true, a 'universal' truth. Many aphorisms have that particular feeling of being a fact you can't get away from. A good example is Winston Churchill's statement that "Success is never final" - which, like many proverbs or maxims, both states a truth and gives a warning - one that contestants and combatants of all sorts should pay heed.

As I said, an aphorisms is usually brief or concise (perhaps even 'terse'). Somewhat wordier observations can be found in the Wisdom collection. Aphorisms also frequently 'clever' or humorous. For this reason, you might amusingly observe that it is not such a great leap from aphorism to sarcasm (although the road back might be a long one.


       --Steve

     - A -

  1. It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.
       Aeschylus


  2. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.
       Aesop


  3. Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
       Aesop


  4. Where there is money, there is fighting.
       Marian Anderson


  5. If you don't have time to do it right you must have time to do it over.
       Anonymous


  6. You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.
       Aristophanes


  7. The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
       Aristotle


  8. Nature does nothing uselessly.
       Aristotle


  9. A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.
       Aristotle


  10. Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
       Berthold Auerbach


    11.  - B -

  11. Nostalgia is a seductive liar.
       George W. Ball


  12. The more you judge, the less you love.
       Honore de Balzac


  13. Passion is born deaf and dumb.
       Honore de Balzac


  14. Memory is the greatest of artists, and effaces from your mind what is unnecessary.
        Maurice Baring


  15. Half the work that is done in the world is to make things appear what they are not.
       E.R. Beadle


  16. Good semse about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.
       Max Beerbohm


  17. Brevity is power.
       Josh Billings


  18. The rarest thing a man ever duz iz the best he can. [sic]
       Josh Billings


  19. Love looks through a telescope; envy through a microscope.
       Josh Billings


  20. Advice is like castor oil, easy enough to give but dreadful uneasy to take.
       Josh Billings


  21. What is now proved was once only imagined.
       William Blake


  22. Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
       Napoleon Bonaparte


  23. What you really value is what you miss, not what you have.
       Jorge Luis Borges


  24. My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants.
       J. Brotherton


  25. Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
       Buddha


  26. The course of true anything does not run smooth.
       Samuel Butler


    27.  - C -

  27. An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes.
       Cato The Elder


  28. We live in a rainbow of Chaos.
       Paul Cezanne


  29. Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
       Dale Carnegie


  30. In some cases, non-violence requires more militancy than violence.
       Cesar Chavez


  31. When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it cannot be cured.
       Anton Chekhov


  32. The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
      --G. K. Chesterton


  33. A closed mind is like a closed book: just a block of wood.
      --Chinese Proverb


  34. It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.
      --Agatha Christie


  35. Success is never final.
       Winston Churchill


  36. Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
      --Winston Churchill


  37. A bridge has no allegiance to eithr side.
       Les Coleman


  38. By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
       Confucius


  39. When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it--this is knowledge.
       Confucius


  40. Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.
       Confucius


  41. History is a vast early warning system.
       Norman Cousins


  42. A good book has no ending.
       R.D. Cumming


    43.  - D -

  43. Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret.
       Benjamin Disraeli


  44. There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.
       Isaac Disraeli


  45. Our deeds follow us, and what we have been makes us what we are.
       John Dykes


    46.  - E -

  46. The environment is everything that isn't me.
       Albert Einstein


  47. Imagination is a poor substitute for experience.
       Havelock Ellis


  48. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
       Ralph Waldo Emerson


  49. So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the path of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours.
       Ralph Waldo Emerson


  50. It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.
       Ralph Waldo Emerson


  51. He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
    And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
       Ralph Waldo Emerson


  52. The education of the will is the object of our existence.
       Ralph Waldo Emerson


  53. Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.
       Epicurus


  54. Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks.
       Euripides


    55.  - F -

  55. The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
       William Faulkner


  56. The voice is a second signature.
       R. I. Fitzhenry


  57. The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
       Malcom Forbes


  58. Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
       Benjamin Franklin


  59. Life's Tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late.
       Benjamin Franklin


  60. The simplest questions are the hardest to answer.
       Northrop Frye


    61.  - G -

  61. Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
       Kahlil Gibran


  62. Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
       Kahlil Gibran, from The Prophet


  63. The impossible is often the untried.
       Jim Goodwin


    64.  - H -

  64. There is only one way to come into this world; there are too many ways to leave it.
       Donald Harington


  65. Man is a make-believe animal - he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
       William Hazlitt


  66. All good work is done the way ants do things, Little by little.
       Lafcadio Hearn


  67. My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
       Ernest Hemingway


  68. Nothing endures but change.
       Heraclitus


  69. You must lose a fly to catch a trout.
       George Herbert


  70. Hope is the poor man's bread.
       George Herbert


  71. Great deeds are usually wrought at great risk.
       Herodotus


  72. We know how to speak many falsehoods that resemble real things, but we know, when we will, how to speak true things.
       Hesiod


  73. Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else.
       Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.


  74. Hunger is not debatable.
       Harry Hopkins


  75. Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum, Multa recedentes adimiunt.
    (The years, as they come, bring many agreeable things with them; as they go, they take many away.)
       Horace, from Ars Poetica


  76. Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
    (When I labor to be brief, I become obscure.)
       Horace, from Ars Poetica


  77. A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.
       Edgar Watson Howe


    78.  - J -

  78. Deep experience is never peaceful.
       Henry James


  79. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
       William James


  80. Luxury is more deadly than any foe.
       Juvenal


    81.  - K -

  81. From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.
       Immanuel Kant


  82. A proverb is no proverb to you till life has illustrated it.
       John Keats


  83. My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
       Clarence Buddinton Kelland


  84. Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
       Rudyard Kipling


  85. Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion.
       Arthur Koestler


  86. Often the search proves more profitable than the goal.
       E. L. Konigsburg


    87.  - L -

  87. There is a woman at the begining of all great things.
       Alphonse de Lamartine


  88. People, like nails, lose their effectiveness when they lose direction and begin to bend.
       Walter Savage Landor


  89. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
       Lao Tzu


  90. It is the Vague and Elusive.
  91. Meet it and you will not see its head.
  92. Follow it and you will not see its back.
       Lao Tzu


  93. One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach.
       Anne Morrow Lindbergh


  94. It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong.
       Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


    95.  - M -

  95. Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.
       Martial


  96. The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.
       Karl Marx


  97. It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
       Herman Melville


  98. We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.
       Menander


  99. It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
       H. L. Mencken


  100. That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.
       John Stuart Mill


  101. You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way.
       Marvin Minsky


  102. How glorious it is -- and also how painful -- to be an exception.
       Alfred de Musset


    103.  - N -

  103. If you don't want to work, you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.
       Ogden Nash


  104. No one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.
       Friederich Nietzsche


  105. There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.
       Friederich Nietzsche


  106. Some people will believe anything if you whisper it to them.
       Louis Nizer
  107. We are near waking when we dream we are dreaming.
       Friedrich Novalis


    108.  - P -

  108. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too little; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.
       Thomas Paine


  109. It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.
       Blaise Pascal


  110. In the field of observation, chance favors the prepared mind.
       Louis Pasteur


  111. Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in the world.
       Cesare Pavese


  112. The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
       Edward Phelps


  113. We always think every other man's job is easier than our own. The better he does it, the easier it looks.
       Eden Phillpotts


  114. The days that are still to come are the wisest witnesses.
       Pindar


  115. Not every truth is the better for showing its face undisguised; and often silence is the wisest thing for a man to heed.
       Pindar


  116. People who think money can do anything may very well be suspected of doing anything for money.
       Mary Pettibone Poole


  117. A catherdral, a wave of storm, a dancer's leap, never turn out to be as high as we had hoped.
       Marcel Proust


  118. Things don't change, but by and by our wishes change.
       Marcel Proust


    119.  - Q -

  119. However gradual the course of history, there must always be the day, even an hour and minute, when some significant action is performed for the first or last time.
        Peter Quennell


    120.  - R -

  120. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.
       Ayn Rand


  121. It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
       Agnes Repplier


  122. Nothing sways the stupid more than arguments they can't understand.
       Cardinal de Retz


  123. Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him.
       Jean Paul Richter


  124. We are never so happy or unhappy as we imagine.
       Francois duc la Rochefoucauld


  125. Not all those who know their minds know their hearts as well.
       Francois duc la Rochefoucauld


  126. One form of loneliness is to have a memory and no one to share it with.
       Phyllis Rose


  127. Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers
       Leo Rosten


  128. Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
       Leo Rosten


  129. Satire is focused bitterness.
       Leo Rosten


  130. Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.
       Leo Rosten


  131. The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.
       Theodore Rubin


    132.  - S -

  132. Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.
       George Santayana


  133. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
       George Santayana


  134. Fanatacism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.
       George Santayana


  135. Maturity consists in no longer being taken in by oneself.
       Kajetan von Schlaggenberg


  136. Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.
       Arthur Schopenhauer


  137. Life is but a moment, death also is but another.
       Dr Robert Schuller


  138. The things hardest to bear are sweetest to remember.
      Seneca

  139. All art is but immitation of nature.
       Seneca


  140. There are many trails up the mountain, but in time, they all reach the top.
       Anya Seton


  141. We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
       George Bernard Shaw


  142. Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.
       George Bernard Shaw


  143. A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
       William Shedd


  144. Sometimes what we call 'memory' and what we call 'imagination' are not so easily distinguished.
       Leslie Marmon Silko


  145. Men of ill judgement oft ignore the good
    That lies within their hands, till they have lost it.
       Sophocles


  146. To him who is in fear everything rustles.
       Sophocles


  147. The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect.
       Robert Louis Stevenson


  148. Fortune is like glass--the brighter the glitter, the more easily broken.
       Publius Syrus


  149. Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
       Publius Syrus


    150.  - T -

  150. The mountain remains unmoved at seeming defeat by the mist.
       Rabindranath Tagore


  151. Beauty, more than bitterness
    Makes the heart break.
       Sara Teasdale


  152. I am a part of all that I have seen.
       Alfred Lord Tennyson


  153. There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly.
       Terence


  154. Nothing is said that has not been said before.
      --Terence (185-159 B.C.)


  155. Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.
       Henry David Thoreau


  156. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
       Henry David Thoreau


  157. There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
      --James Thurber


  158. Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.
      --Alvin Toffler


  159. Not all who wander are lost.
      --J.R.R. Tolkien


  160. Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.
       Harry Truman


    161.  - V -

  161. Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.
       Paul Valery


  162. In love, as in war, a fortress that parleys is half taken.
       Margaret of Valois


  163. Death twitches my ear. 'Live,' he says, 'I am coming.'
      --Virgil


    164.  - W -

  164. Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.
      --Karl Wallenda


  165. One is never more on trial than in the moment of excessive good fortune.
       Lew Wallace


  166. And from the discontent of one man
    The world's best progress springs.
       Ella Wheeler Wilcox


  167. Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell the truth.
       Oscar Wilde


  168. There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.
       Oscar Wilde


    169.  - Y -

  169. Surrounding yourself with dwarfs does not make you a giant.
       Yiddish Proverb


  170. There is no god like one's stomach: We must sacrifice to it every day.
       Yoruba Saying


    171.  - Z -

  171. There is more stupidity around than hydrogen, and it has a longer shelf life.
       Frank Zappa


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