Henry exclaimed suddenly, “The Oxford Book of Aphorisms! Whoa! There is something I want to buy!” Now, Henry is in the process of slimming down his collectio
n of books. He’s moving across the country to George Washington U and has no room for more books. So, we went on a hunt to compile a brief collection of these brief sayings for Henry.
An aphorism is, according to literarydevices.net, “a statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner. The term is often applied to philosophical, moral and literary principles. To qualify as an aphorism, it is necessary for a statement to contain a truth revealed in a terse manner.”
What follows are our favorite found aphorisms on Advice, Respect, Love, Failure, Motivation, and Computers.
“Most people, when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.”
–Henry Wheeler Shaw
“Respect is greater at a distance.”
–Publius Cornelius Tacitus
“If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you.”
–Winnie the Pooh
“There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.”
–Laurence Johnston Peter
“All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.”
–James Thurber
“Never trust a computer you can’t throw out a window.”
–Steve Wozniak
“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Try an aphorism. Share it with us. Focus on brevity and clarity to find your way into an idea. For you Romantics out there, Henry has provided links to his favorite romantic aphorism cites: for romantic lines from Wuthering Heights, go to https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1565818-wuthering-heights; for the most romantic lines in the UK, go to http://uk.reuters.com/article/arts-us-books-romance-idUKTRE7198H220110210; and for Buzzfeed’s “43 Most Romantic Lines,” go to https://www.buzzfeed.com/juliapugachevsky/most-romantic-lines-from-literature?utm_term=.nfR7yLN0w#.yhlnmYaxG.
