APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. "The Mad Philosopher," 1697 — Ambrose Bierce
An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths. — Karl Kraus
Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions. — Eric Temple Bell
Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words. — Samuel Johnson
The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty space; everything else is merely thought to exist. — Democritus
An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog. — Friedrich Von Schlegel
An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
It is characteristic of ideology to impose self-evident facts as self-evident facts. — Louis Althusser
Short Axiom Quotes
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. — Arthur Conan Doyle
We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author. — John Keats
The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. — Abraham Lincoln
Summation of Leviathan: "The axiom, fear; the method, logic; the conclusion, despotism." — Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper
For axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses. — John Keats
Perhaps the truest axiom in baseball is that the toughest thing to do is repeat. — Walt Alston
Axioms are delightful in theory, but impossible in practice. — Antoine Rivarol
Perhaps the truest axiom in baseball is that the toughest thing to do is repeat. — Walter Alston
Applying the axioms of physical science to human life has something reprehensible to it. — Albert Einstein
The first axiom of the family vacation is that someone, possibly everyone, will get sick. — Marni Jackson
Axiom Image Quotes
What Is Axiom Quotes
Life cannot be captured in a few axioms. And that is just what I keep trying to do. But it won't work, for life is full of endless nuances and cannot be captured in just a few formulae. — Etty Hillesum
To every reversal of people's soveregnity, to every disappearance of the Republic corresponds a frank or disguised restitution in force of the regal justice. "Tell me, according to what you judge and I'll tell you who you are." No axiom in politics is more certain than this. — Francois Mitterrand
Underlying the preaching of the Puritans are three basic axioms: 1. The unique place of preaching is to convert, feed and sustain, 2. The life of the preacher must radiate the reality of what he preaches, 3. Prayer and solid Bible study are basic to effective preaching. — J. I. Packer
What government supports, government controls. This is an ancient axiom repeatedly ratified by experience. . . . Indeed, as is well known, acceptance of tax aid has led to the secularization of many church-related colleges and universities. — Edd Doerr
Not only the individual experience slowly acquired, but the accumulated experience of the race, organized in language, condensed in instruments and axioms, and in what may be called the inherited intuitions--these form the multiple unity which is expressed in the abstract term "experience. — George Henry Lewes
What we need to do is follow the axiom of World War II which was 'Loose Lips Sink Ships' and the media has really got to follow that. — David Hackworth
There is a social injunction implied in the positivist and analyst methods. This social axiom is that :;:;:;:;:;:; We OUGHT to act in such a way that what IS true can be verified to be so. — Jacob Bronowski
At first it seems obvious, but the more you think about it the stranger the deductions from this axiom seem to become; in the end you cease to understand what is meant by it. — Bertrand Russell
Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience. — Albert Einstein
The Americans are the living refutation of the Cartesian axiom, "I think, therefore I am": Americans do not think, yet they are. The American 'mind,' puerile and primitive, lacks characteristic form and is therefore open to every kind of standardization. — Julius Evola
the old axiom that 'all power corrupts' has doubtful validity, because it derives from our neglect of Plato's advice to find men carefully and train them by methods which make them fit for heroes. — Oswald Mosley
We shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man. — Lynn Townsend White, Jr.
The full impact of the Lobachevskian method of challenging axioms has probably yet to be felt. It is no exaggeration to call Lobachevsky the Copernicus of Geometry [as did Clifford], for geometry is only a part of the vaster domain which he renovated; it might even be just to designate him as a Copernicus of all thought. — Eric Temple Bell
In a conquered country benevolence is not humanitarianism. It is a general political axiom that a conqueror must not inspire a good opinion of his benevolence until he has demonstrated that he can be severe with malefactors. — Napoleon Bonaparte
Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms. — Will Durant
We should never forget the two axioms: 'Jesus is with me' and whatever happens, happens by the will of God. — Charles de Foucauld
It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan. — Thomas Jefferson
The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms. — Albert Einstein
What exactly is mathematics? Many have tried but nobody has
really succeeded in defining mathematics; it is always something
else. Roughly speaking, people know that it deals with numbers,
figures, with relations, operations, and that its formal procedures
involving axioms, proofs, lemmas, theorems have not changed
since the time of Archimedes. — Stanislaw Ulam
Many successful people are no more talented than unsuccessful people. The difference between them lies in the old axiom that successful people do those things that unsuccessful people don't like to do. — Harvey Mackay
The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood for the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid. — Edgar Allan Poe
We know that there is no absolute knowledge, that there are only theories; but we forget this. The better educated we are, the harder we believe in axioms. — Lincoln Steffens
There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country we punish men for the crimes they commit but never for the opinions they have. — Harry S. Truman
There is an ancient Celtic axiom that says 'Good people drink good beer.' Which is true, then as now. Just look around you in any public barroom and you will quickly see: Bad people drink bad beer. Think about it. — Hunter S. Thompson
Geometry, like arithmetic, requires for its logical development only a small number of simple, fundamental principles. These fundamental principles are called the axioms of geometry. — David Hilbert
It is an axiom of political science in the United States that the sole means of neutralizing the effects of newspapers is to multiply their number. — Alexis de Tocqueville
It is an old psychological axiom that constant exposure to the object of fear immunizes against the fear. — Maxwell Maltz
I tell you the solemn truth, that the doctrine of the Trinity is not so difficult to accept for a working proposition as any one of the axioms of physics. — Henry Adams
The only thing that might have annoyed some mathematicians was the presumption of assuming that maybe the axiom of choice could fail, and that we should look into contrary assumptions. — Alonzo Church
The principal axiom in their theory was: Everything can be proved, and everything can be disproved; and in the process, one must profit as much from the folly of others, and from his own superiority, as he can. — Moses Mendelssohn
We're taught Lord Acton's axiom: all power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believed that when I started these books, but I don't believe it's always true any more. Power doesn't always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true about power is that power always reveals. — Robert Caro
If there are such things as political axioms, the propriety of the judicial power of a government being co-extensive with its legislative, may be ranked among the number. — Alexander Hamilton
I put a lot of stock in the written word, and the power of it. That's what I love about acting and reading scripts. Words are really powerful. I don't believe that axiom at all - words can absolutely hurt you. Words can wound. They can do a lot of damage. I think they can do way more damage than sticks and stones. I'll take sticks and stones. — Mary-Louise Parker
The Axiom of Choice is necessary to select a set from an infinite number of socks, but not an infinite number of shoes. — Bertrand Russell
My fundamental axiom of speculative philosophy is that materialism and spiritualism are opposite poles of the same absurdity-the absurdity of imagining that we know anything about either spirit or matter. — Thomas Huxley
We must start with scientific fundamentals, and that means with the data of experiments and not with assumed axioms predicated only upon the misleading nature of that which only superficially seems to be obvious. It is the consensus of great scientists that science is the attempt to set in order the facts of experience. — Richard Buckminster Fuller
Honesty is the best policy, says the familiar axiom; but people who are honest on that principle defraud no one but themselves. — James A. Garfield
The opinions that the price of commodities depends solely on the proportion of supply and demand, or demand to supply, has become almost an axiom in political economy, and has been the source of much error in that science. — David Ricardo
It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, since the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active. — Francis Bacon
It may be assumed as an axiom that Providence has never gifted any political party with all of political wisdom or blinded it with all of political folly. — John George Nicolay
An Italian proverb says, In men every mortal sin is venial; in woman every venial sin is mortal. And a German axiom, that There are only two good women in the world: one of them is dead, and the other is not to be found. — George Augustus Henry Sala
Yet Gotama's Dhamma is more than just a series of axioms. It is to be lived rather than simply adopted and believed in. It entails that one embrace this world in all its contingency and specificity, with all its ambiguity and flaws. — Stephen Batchelor
Natura nihil agit frustra [Nature does nothing in vain] is the only indisputible axiom in philosophy. There are no grotesques in nature; not any thing framed to fill up empty cantons, and unncecessary spaces. — Thomas Browne
It is practically an axiom in psychiatry that precocious intellect combined with physical weakness can give rise to many unpleasant character traits - avarice, delusions of grandeur , and obsessive masturbation, to name just a few. — Sam Savage
In Conclusion
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