Aphorism

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An aphorism (literally distinction or definition, from Greek αφοριζειν "to define") expresses a general truth in a pithy sentence.

Care should be taken not to confound aphorisms with axioms. Aphorisms come into being as the result of experience. This is also often the case with axioms (see axiomatization; Euclidean geometry), but due to their apparent certainty, axioms are then regarded as assertions not requiring proof, and used as the starting point for further deductive reasoning. Aphorisms have been especially used in dealing with subjects such as art, agriculture, medicine, jurisprudence, psychology, and politics, to which little methodical or scientific treatment was applied at the time.

Etymology

The name was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, a long series of propositions concerning the symptoms and diagnosis of disease and the art of healing and medicine. The term came to be applied later to other sententious statements of physical science and later still to statements of all kinds of principles.

The Aphorisms of Hippocrates form by far the most celebrated as well as the earliest collection of the kind. They include:

"Old men support abstinence well: people of a ripe age less well: Young folk badly, and children less well than all the rest, particularly those of them who are very lively."
"Those who are very fat by nature are more exposed to die suddenly than those who are thin."
"When two illnesses arrive at the same time, the stronger silences the weaker."

The first aphorism, perhaps the best known of all, which serves as a kind of introduction to the book, runs:

"Life is short, art is long, opportunity fugitive, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult: it is necessary not only to do oneself what is right, but also to be seconded by the patient, by those who attend him, by external circumstances."

Examples

Usually an aphorism is a very concise statement expressing a general truth or wise observation often in a clever way. Sometimes aphorisms rhyme, sometimes they have repeated words or phrases, and sometimes they have two parts that are of the same grammatical structure. Some examples include:

Science is organized knowledge. — Herbert Spencer
Lost time is never found again. — Benjamin Franklin
Greed is a permanent slavery. — Ali
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Death with dignity is better than life with humiliation. — Husayn ibn Ali
That which does not destroy us makes us stronger. — Friedrich Nietzsche
If you see the teeth of the lion, do not think that the lion is smiling at you. — Al-Mutanabbi
When your legs get weaker time starts running faster. — Mikhail Turovsky
Many of those who tried to enlighten were hanged from the lampposts. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
The psychology of committees is a special case of the psychology of mobs. — Celia Green
Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. — Unknown, possibly French proverb, or authored by François de La Rochefoucauld
One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic. — Joseph Stalin
Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see. — Mark Twain
It is better to be hated for what one is, than loved for what one is not. — André Gide
A lie told often enough becomes the truth. — Vladimir Lenin
Like a road in Autumn: Hardly is it swept clean before it is covered again with dead leaves. — Franz Kafka
Love the sinner and hate the sin. (Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum.) - St. Augustine of Hippo

It can embody humour or be tied to some overworked statement, such as:

One man's meat is another man's poison.
One man's trash is another man's treasure.
One man's ceiling is another man's floor. — Paul Simon
Whom God Saves can never be Decimated. — Vedas

Aphorism and literature

Aphoristic collections, sometimes known as wisdom literature, have a prominent place in the canons of several ancient societies: E.g. the Biblical Book of Proverbs, Islamic Hadith, Hesiod's Works and Days, or Epictetus' Handbook. Aphoristic collections also make up an important part of the work of some modern authors, such as Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Friedrich Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, Karl Kraus, La Rouchefoucauld, Thomas Szasz, Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, Mikhail Turovsky, Celia Green, Robert A. Heinlein, Gay Walley, E. M. Cioran, and Leonard Wisdon. A 1559 oil-on-oak-panel painting, Netherlandish Proverbs (also called The Blue Cloak or The Topsy Turvy World) by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, artfully depicts a land populated with literal renditions of Flemish aphorisms (proverbs) of the day.

Poetics of the aphorism

Some sociolinguists consider the aphorism a compressed poetic genre in itself. Aphorisms typically make extensive use of such devices as alliteration (penny wise, pound foolish), anaphora (a penny saved is a penny earned) and rhyme (a stitch in time saves nine).

Consider, for example, the aphorism "Children should be seen and not heard", which has persisted in common usage despite many compelling objections to its wisdom. Whatever the value of its message, the phrase could, in fact, be considered a masterpiece of oral-poetic art.

"Children should be seen and not heard" contains emphatic repetition of the consonants n and d (Children should be seen and not heard). Metrically, it consists of four syllables without strong rhythmical marking (Children should be) followed by a pronounced choriamb (seen and not heard). It is thus remarkably similar to octosyllabic verse-forms found in many ancient literatures, including Sappho's lyrics and the hymns of the Rig-Veda.

Aphorism and society

In a number of cultures, such as Samuel Johnson's England and tribal societies throughout the world, the ability to spontaneously produce aphoristic sayings at exactly the right moment is a key determinant of social status.

Many societies have traditional sages or culture heroes to whom aphorisms are commonly attributed, such as the Seven Sages of Greece, Confucius or King Solomon.

Misquoted or misadvised aphorisms are frequently used as a source of humour; for instance, wordplays around aphorisms appear in the works of P. G. Wodehouse, Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams (e.g. Zaphod Beeblebrox saying "Right now I need aphorisms like I need holes in my heads"). Aphorisms being misquoted by sports players, coaches and commentators forms the basis of Private Eye's Colemanballs section.

Aphorists

An aphorist is someone who produces or collects aphorisms. Famous aphorists include:

References

The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism by James Geary
"Itch of Wisdom" by Mikhail Turovsky, Hemlock Press 1990 (English edition)

External links

Aphorisms galore Famous quotations and sayings listed by authors and categories.

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Last updated on Tuesday March 11, 2008 at 21:55:06 PDT (GMT -0700)
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