Aphorism Quotes

Though people sort of need your permission to talk to you, they do not really need one to talk about you.

We seldom learn much from someone with whom we agree.

Among other possibilities, money was invented to make it possible for a foolish man to control wise men; a weak man, strong men; a child, old men; an ignorant man, knowledgeable men; and for a dwarf to control giants.

If a man has his eyes bound, you can encourage him as much as you like to stare through the bandage, but he'll never see anything.

Prohibition is to abstain from intoxicating liquor, as it makes us morbid and sometimes drunk. But we get drunk every day, nevertheless, not so much by the strength of what we sip from the cup, but that which we eat, the water we drink, and the air we inhale, which at fermentation conspire at eventide to make us so drunk and tired that we lose control of ourselves and fall asleep. Everybody is a drunkard, and if we were to enforce real prohibition we should all be dead.

Love is worth dying for, said the spermatozoid.

We are sometimes hurt mostly or only not by what happened or is happening to us but by being felt sorry for.

Everything is possible, but where can I find everything?!

Melancholy: an appetite no misery satisfies.

There’s no such thing as a good or bad person: there are just people who have each been or seem to have been good or bad to you, someone, or some people, thus far.

One of the most common and most dangerous misbeliefs is that it is impossible for someone to be stupid just because they are a doctor or a lawyer.

There would definitely be way fewer instances of cheating, if the average couple did not have sex only when the woman feels like it.

Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not.

Most people would instantly start feeling ten years older if someone were to convince them that they were actually born a decade before their birthdate.

We are not as important to most people as we are to ourselves. As a matter of fact, we are—to most people—not important at all.

Some disabled people spend a significant amount of their energy on trying to come across as abled or as not that disabled.

It's not over till the fat lady eats!

Most of the very few people who would choose a good heart over riches would eventually use that to either make a lot of money, or attract men or women who are rich.

The wind is blowing. Don’t bend if you want to please him.

Most people would rather eat inside a windowless room in which they have just defecated than eat inside one in which someone else has just farted, even if the room does not have a toilet.

A seemingly simple task like taking a bath or wearing a condom feels like multitasking to someone who suffers from hemiplegia or has only one hand.

Keep trying?I'd rather keep walking. I mean, whisky is whisky

People who are not blessed with the ability to make others laugh compensate for that by saying (or trying to say) things that are profound.

I have inflammation of the imagination.

To evade arrogance, remind yourself (from time to time) that your talent or success could have been better. To be thankful, remind yourself (every now and then) that your illness or failure could have been worse.

An ignorant man who is regarded as knowledgeable by people who are more ignorant than him is still ignorant.

Death would be an extremely bad thing like most of us paint it, if being dead were painful.

The death of a billionaire is worth more to the media than the lives of a billion poor people.

Greed is a contagious mental illness without which civilization as we know it would not have been possible.

I have a wide circle of friends, wide enough to keep them away from me.

Always ask yourself: "What will happen if I say nothing?

Only memories have a future.

The answer to the question ‘How many children do you have?’ and the one to the question ‘How many children are you raising?’ are not identical in all cases: some men are not taking care of their own children, some are knowingly or unknowingly raising other men’s children, and some do not even know that they each have a child, another child, or other children.

We sometimes reveal how ignorant or bored we were when we read a book by giving it 5-stars.

Passing their toilet training is the very last thing that some adults did that has made their parents proud of them.

Life is a process during which one initially gets less and less dependent, independent, and then more and more dependent.

Showing off is more ridiculous in instances where the thing that is being shown off was bought on credit.

Hide in the mirror. No one will look for you there.

With regard to things such as independence, mental capabilities, and sexuality, a very old man is nothing but a gigantic infant with white hair and wrinkles.

Being a bad parent is a sign of not having learned from experience.

A journal takes the place of a confidant, that is, of friend or wife; it becomes a substitute for production, a substitute for country and public. It is a grief-cheating device, a mode of escape and withdrawal; but, factotum as it is, though it takes the place of everything, properly speaking it represents nothing at all...

While the man is putting on it's shoes, the woman can buy dozens of high heels.

Our parents would not be ‘The best parents in the world’ (to us) if they were not our parents.

A tie is what you get after ice cubes have wrestled with hot water.

A painting is worth a thousand confused art-gallery visitors.

I will build the best Potemkin village for you, my love!

Millions of business people are each constantly forced to choose between their desire to not be a bad person and their desire to be a good business person, that is to say, to make as much money as they possibly can by maximizing their revenue while minimizing the cost of producing whatever it is that they sell.

In some cases, you can tell how somebody is being treated by their own boss from the way they are treating someone to whom they are a boss.

The only way to fight nostalgia is to listen to somebody else's nostalgia

Some people respect some people only because some people respect them.

As soon as you wink, you close your eyes to reality.

It takes two to bribe.

I give away examples!

Some people avoid thinking deeply in public, only because they are afraid of coming across as suicidal.

aphorism 90: I am incorrigible. I would have every object of the universe mechanically predictable but myself.

The shortest distance between two points is always under construction.

If Socrates was alive today he would say : I know that I know everything. That's what contemporary philosophers do.

Men weigh love with hands.

The eleventh commandment of art: thou shalt not be boring.

Not everyone who condemns masturbation can masturbate.