Aphorism

An aphorism belongs to the large group of words called “sayings”—a strange term, for we say many things such as “hello” or “scram”; all speech is saying. Etymologically, aphorism has the basic meaning of “definition.” It is itself usually defined as a pithy statement of a (would-be) general truth. It is as old as literate humanity and virtually worldwide in occurrence. It is a key part of what is often called “wisdom literature,” whereas much literature in fact teaches unwisdom, fantasy, and nonconformism. Leading aphorists include: Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Nicholas Chamfort (1741–1794), Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), and Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880). This entry discusses different types of aphorisms and their purposes.

Its close relatives are, firstly, “apothegm,” defined as a pithy, instructive saying; secondly, “gnome,” which veers in meaning between “opinion” and “enigma”—hence the adjective “gnomic.” Short forms such as the aphorism often mystify, indeed, by virtue of their very conciseness. For instance, the 19th-century American poet and essayist Emerson: “Language is fossil poetry.” Even when not mystifying, aphorisms can pull you up short and make you think or rethink, as in Johnson's 18th-century comment on dictionaries: “I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.” Thirdly, the “saw”: Here the emphasis falls on the triteness of the wisdom on offer. Fourthly, the “adage,” a blood relative of the aphorism (Desiderius Erasmus, the Dutch humanist scholar: “In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king”). The “maxim,” lastly, is a first cousin. One of the most accomplished and celebrated coiners of maxims was the 17th-century French aristocrat François de La Rochefoucauld (“Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue”). His collection of maxims was the suave product of a high-society game in which participants took turns at polishing or rephrasing the original statements. A maxim (like the Maxim gun) sets itself up as more unarguable than an aphorism—though of course bullying can take many forms, including subtle ones. At least in intention, there is something conclusive or would-be domineering about a successful aphorism. It can cinch an argument.

Like the epigram, the aphorism is a device of economy. This “word to the wise” (verbum sapientibus, in the original Latin) does not waste its breath. “Neither the sun nor death can be stared at directly” (La Rochefoucauld). The 19th-century radical thinker Friedrich Nietzsche, who called himself the first master of the aphorism among Germans, declared (and the sentiment should chasten all [Page 51]writers): “My ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book.” Even when totally sober in expression and intention, aphorisms, being condensed narratives (like jokes), tend to contain the potentiality of humor, for “brevity is the soul of wit” (according to Polonius in Shakespeare's Hamlet).

An anonymous variant or rival of the aphorism has always been the proverb, together with its mock and twisted offshoot, the “perverb,” or perverted proverb. The latter updates and rewrites the worldly wise or wiseacre message of the original, as in “Many are called but few get the right number.” In this way, sayings for a long time inert can be reactivated and like trampolines lend bounce to ideas. Many proverbs and aphorisms too are akin to cracker-barrel philosophy. Proverbs, more than aphorisms, are ready-mades and seek to be equipment for living (“Patch grief with proverbs,” as a Shakespeare character has it). Like aphorisms, proverbs teach economy: of expression, effort, expense, or suffering. Both forms sound comic when extended into long-windedness. Proverbs differ most from aphorisms when considered as a total body, and individual examples contradict each other, which more rarely happens between separate aphorisms: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” gainsays “Out of sight, out of mind.” While proverbs concentrate heavily on the more mean-spirited sides of experience, an aphorism can point up how hard it is to evoke happiness convincingly: “The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon” (Francis Bacon, English philosopher and statesman).

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