{"id":37926,"date":"2021-04-11T07:18:11","date_gmt":"2021-04-11T12:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=37926"},"modified":"2025-12-15T20:18:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T02:18:22","slug":"aphorisms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/character\/aphorisms\/","title":{"rendered":"20 Aphorisms That I Thought Were Dumb as a Boy But Now Appreciate as a Grown Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

With our archives now 3,500+ articles deep, we\u2019ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in January 2014.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I was a young man, I would scoff at well-intentioned adults who would sometimes offer up little aphorisms when I got in trouble or had a problem. Little nuggets like, \u201cThis too shall pass,\u201d generally went in one ear and out the other. They sounded too simple and too clich\u00e9 to really mean anything.<\/p>\n

But as I\u2019ve become a grown man, I\u2019ve had experiences where these little bits of wisdom have come back to me and have revealed their value and deeper truth. I\u2019ve come to really agree with the poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who argued that “The largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms.”<\/p>\n

An aphorism is a short, pithy statement that conveys a principle or contains a pearl of wisdom. Part of what makes them so powerful is that they can stand on their own without context; as the philologist Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel put it, \u201cAn aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philosopher Nassim Nicholas Talib argues that an aphorism\u2019s ability \u201cto compress powerful ideas in a handful of words\u201d shows bravado. This may be why, he notes, \u201cthe Arabic word for an improvised one-liner is ‘act of manliness.’\u201d<\/p>\n

These \u201cacts of manliness\u201d communicate timeless truths that have been around for ages. But the fact that aphorisms are so old and common makes them easy to dismiss, the way I did as a young man.<\/p>\n

As a culture we want things that seem new, revolutionary, complex, and smart; we want the cool hacks and \u201csecrets\u201d that haven\u2019t been discovered until now. But, as author David Foster Wallace has noted, although these \u201cclich\u00e9s\u201d may seem \u201clame and unexciting on the surface,\u201d they actually express great, incredibly relevant truths; no matter how much society has changed, following classic, simple principles is still the pathway to a good, meaningful life. So we would advise everyone (including ourselves) to heed Wallace\u2019s additional words while perusing the aphorisms below: \u201cBracket for just a few minutes your skepticism about the value of the totally obvious.\u201d The more you meditate on these words, the more wisdom they\u2019ll reveal to you.<\/p>\n

Even when something seems obvious, \u201cThe whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.\u201d So consider making one of these images your laptop\u2019s screensaver or your phone\u2019s lock screen.<\/p>\n

\"Be<\/p>\n

\"Place<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

\"As<\/p>\n

\"Measure<\/p>\n

\"Little<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"There's<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

\"Lie<\/p>\n

\"Chain<\/p>\n

\"It's<\/p>\n

\"Nothing<\/p>\n

\"Only<\/p>\n

\"Don't<\/p>\n

\"You<\/p>\n

\"Still<\/p>\n

\"Hunger<\/p>\n

\"You'll<\/p>\n

\"Rome<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\n
\n