WIST Quotations

Bierce, Ambrose -- “Adage,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1881-03-05)

Dave — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 20:16:43 +0000

ADAGE, n. A hoary-headed platitude that is kicked along the centuries until nothing is left of it but its clothes. A “saw” which has worn out its teeth on the human understanding.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Adage,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1881-03-05)
(Source)

Not collected in later books. Instead, in The Cynic's Word Book (1906), he changed it to "Boned wisdom for weak teeth."

Stevenson, Robert Louis -- Essay (1878-03), “Crabbed Age and Youth,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 38

Dave — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 15:29:03 +0000

There is a strong feeling in favour of cowardly and prudential proverbs. The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed and begins to eat up his words, he should be listened to like an oracle. Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity. And since mediocre people constitute the bulk of humanity, this is no doubt very properly so. But it does not follow that the one sort of proposition is any less true than the other, or that Icarus is not to be more praised, and perhaps more envied, than Mr. Samuel Budgett the Successful Merchant.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1878-03), “Crabbed Age and Youth,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 38
(Source)

Collected in Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers, ch. 2 (1881)

Kraus, Karl -- Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths [tr. Zohn (1976)]

Dave — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 21:13:46 +0000

An aphorism never coincides with the truth: it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.

Karl Kraus (1874-1936) Austrian writer, journalist, aphorist
Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths [tr. Zohn (1976)]
(Source)

Twain, Mark -- More Tramps Abroad, Epigraph, ch. 23 (1897)

Dave — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 22:37:13 +0000

What are the proper proportions of a maxim? A minimum of sound to a maximum of sense.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
More Tramps Abroad, Epigraph, ch. 23 (1897)
(Source)

Kanfer, Stefan -- “Proverbs or Aphorisms,” Time (11 Jun 1983)

Dave — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 23:31:27 +0000

The aphorism is a personal observation inflated into a universal truth, a private posing as a general. A proverb is anonymous human history compressed to the size of a seed.

Stefan Kanfer (1933-2018) American writer, editor, journalist
“Proverbs or Aphorisms,” Time (11 Jun 1983)
(Source)

Morley, John -- “Aphorisms,” speech, Edinburgh (1887)

Dave — Tue, 20 Mar 2018 13:37:15 +0000

The essence of aphorism is the compression of a mass of thought and observation into a single saying. It is the very opposite of dissertation and declamation; its distinction is not so much ingenuity, as good sense brought to a point.

John Morley (1838-1923) English statesman, journalist, writer [John, Viscount Morley]
“Aphorisms,” speech, Edinburgh (1887)
(Source)

Santayana, George -- The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 5 “Reason in Science,” ch. 8 “Prerational Morality” (1905)

Dave — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:35:48 +0000

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 5 “Reason in Science,” ch. 8 “Prerational Morality” (1905)
(Source)

Macaulay, Thomas Babington -- “Machiavelli,” Edinburgh Review (Mar 1827)

Dave — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 17:28:41 +0000

Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a general maxim. If it be very moral and very true, it may serve for copy to a charity-boy. If, like those of Rochefoucauld, it be sparkling and whimsical, it may make an excellent motto for an essay. Few, indeed, of the many wise apophthegms which have been uttered from the time of the Seven Sages of Greece to that of Poor Richard, have prevented a single foolish action.

Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) English writer and politician
“Machiavelli,” Edinburgh Review (Mar 1827)
(Source)

Review of Œvres complètes de Machiavel, J. V. Perier ed. (1825)

Johnson, Samuel -- The Rambler, #175 (19 Nov 1751)

Dave — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:50:10 +0000

But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare and abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truths in a few words. We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of actions are not not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered; and he may, therefore, be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #175 (19 Nov 1751)
(Source)