aphorism

in a sentence

He shared his latest aphorism: "Don't let go too soon, but don't hang on too long."  (source) Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie, 1997

He could still hear his father speaking the old New England aphorism: If it wasn't painfully difficult, you did it wrong.  (source) Dan Brown, Angels & Demons, 2000

I had prepared myself for that, and even thought of several positive, uplifting aphorisms to cheer him up.  (source) John Knowles, A Separate Peace, 1959

She had a store of aphorisms which she dished out as the occasion demanded.  (source) Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969

Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of the precept, that "Whatever is is right;" an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong.  (source) Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859

—Mason Cooley (1927—2002), U.S. aphorist He tried to kill me," Andy keeps saying.†  (source) Meg Cabot, Queen of Babble, 2006

ESTRAGON: (aphoristic for once).†  (source) Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, 1953

Nothing could have been less consonant with Selden's mood than Van Alstyne's after-dinner aphorisms, but as long as the latter confined himself to generalities his listener's nerves were in control.  (source) Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, 1905

"Well," my father exclaimed indignantly, preparing us for the aphorism he uses like a maraschino cherry to top off all his unappreciated repair projects, "a man standing next to a river cannot appreciate water."†  (source) Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi, 2003

He would be an aphorist of last things, giving me the barest glance—civilized, ironic—as he spoke his deft and stylish line about my journey out.†  (source) Don DeLillo, White Noise, 1985

It had many imitators, and founded an aphoristic style of writing which culminated in the essays of Emerson, often mere strings of sonorous certainties, defectively articulated.†  (source) Henry L. Mencken, The American Language, 1919

But he bucks himself up with aphorisms like "A man is not made for defeat.†  (source) Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, 2003

After ten standard months I was done, acknowledging the ancient aphorism to the effect that no book or poem is ever finished, merely abandoned.†  (source) Dan Simmons, Hyperion, 1989