Literary device – Aphorism

An aphorism is a short witty saying which expresses a general truth or comment in a terse manner. It is a brief saying or phrase that expresses an opinion or makes a statement of wisdom. Aphorism can also be defined as a statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner.

                Examples

• Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.
• A barking dog never bites.
• A penny saved is a penny earned.
• Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
• Actions speak louder than words.
• All for one and one for all.
• All that glitters isn’t gold.
• All things come to those who wait.
• An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
• Children should be seen and not heard.
• Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.
• Don’t hide your light under a bushel.
• Don’t judge a book by its cover.
• Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom.
• Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
• East or west, home is best.
• Eat to live; don’t live to eat.
• Even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it. (John Keats)
• From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.
• Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.
• Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
• Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile.
• Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself.
• He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.
• He who pays the piper calls the tune.
• If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.
• If you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
• If you want a thing done well, do it yourself. (Napoleon Bonaparte)
• Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it.
• Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
• It’s only words…unless they’re true. (David Mamet)
• Know which side your bread is buttered on.
• Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.
• Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. (Benjamin Franklin)
• Measure twice cut once.
• Necessity is the mother of invention. (Plato)
• Possession is nine-tenths of the law.
• Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. (Lord Acton)
• That which yields is not always weak. (Jacqueline Carey)
• The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. (Lao Tzu)
• The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. (William Faulkner)
• The more things change, the more they stay the same.
• The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
• The race isn’t always to the swift, nor the fight to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.
• The simplest questions are the hardest to answer. (Northrop Frye)
• There is truth in wine and children. (Plato)
• Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. (Rudyard Kipling)
• Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream. (Khalil Gibran)
• You can kill a man but you can’t kill an idea.
• You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
• You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.
• You can’t fight city hall.
• You need to take a bull by the horns, and a man by his word.
• Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old age regret. (Benjamin Disraeli)

The statements of aphorism are quoted in writings, as well as in our daily speech. The fact that they contain a truth gives them a universal acceptance. Most of the philosophers, politicians, writers, artists, sportsmen, and other individuals are remembered for their famous aphoristic statements. Aphorisms allow a writer to teach a philosophical or moral truth.