Aphorisms are essentially an aristocratic genre of writing. The aphorist does not argue or explain, he asserts; and implicit in his assertion is a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers. –W. H. Auden

It’s the oldest and briefest literary art form, claims James Geary, the editor of the compendium Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorists. According to Geary, the aphorism must be brief and definitive, as well as personal and philosophical. And, he explains, it must have a twist which can be either a linguistic twist or a psychological twist or even a twist in logic that somehow flips the reader into a totally unexpected place.

In an age of tweets and sound bites, perhaps it’s the aphorism’s pithiness that is most attractive, that keeps it relevant. If I had to make a sound wager, I’d bet that most of my former students remember little about American Transcendental writer Henry David Thoreau except that he went to the woods and left us with a classic aphorism or two:

–I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

—If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

—A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

The same could be said of Transcendental Ralph Waldo Emerson:

—Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

—To be great is to be misunderstood.

—Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

Here are words which, over a century later, grace posters and coffee mugs, t-shirts and greeting cards. Aphorisms like these have lasting power, and generations after they’ve been written, individuals insist that surely they must have been written for them and for such a time as this.

Perhaps the greatest power of the aphorism is the author’s assertiveness which, as poet W. H. Auden insists, stems from a conviction that he is wiser and more intelligent than his readers. When one writes with such forceful brevity, with such personal and philosophical certainty, we listen. There are too many babblers in the world, individuals who use a universe of words and say nothing. They’ve exhausted us, sucked the very life from us and left us thirsting for a good aphorism. And if the aphorism is not only brief and authoritarian but witty, leaving us with some kind of psychological, linguistic, or logical twist, all the better. For these are words worth knowing and repeating, words that will make us, too, sound wiser than we are.

In his New Yorker article “The Art of Aphorism,” Adam Gopnik quotes English philosopher John Stuart Mill who claimed that [a]lmost all books of aphorisms, which have ever acquired a reputation, have retained it. Gophnik elaborates:

We don’t absorb aphorisms as esoteric wisdom; we test them against our own experience. The empirical test of the aphorism takes the form first of laughter and then of longevity, and its confidential tone makes it candid, not cynical. Aphorisms live because they contain human truth, as Mill saw, and reach across barriers of class and era.

I think that Gopnik’s insight into the human truth embedded in good aphorisms is particularly apt. What’s better than a brief, pithy assertion about human nature? Reading such an aphorism is akin to a 30-second doctor’s visit during which a definitive diagnosis is delivered and cure prescribed. Eleanor Roosevelt offered just such an aphorism when she wrote: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. The diagnosis: you’re feeling inferior, struggling to see your own worth. And the cure: just stop consenting to feel that way. There it is, short and sweet. Ten words and a few precious seconds later, and you’re on your way to improved self-esteem.

Or consider this aphorism from William Shakespeare: A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. Short, definitive, personal, philosphical, and with a twist? Check. Insight into human nature? Check. As one might expect, Shakespeare, the aphorist, rocks. Likewise Benjamin Franklin (Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late), George Bernard Shaw (Youth is wasted on the young), Albert Einstein (The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education), and Alfred Lord Tennyson (Tis better to have loved and lost/ than never to have loved at all). The list of famous aphorisms–unlike the form itself–is pratically endless.

Although I love my father’s poetry, like many, I’ve found particular solace and wisdom in his aphorisms:

—Love is what gives legacy a face.

—Anyone who is inclined to wonder edges toward the profound.

—Notice how a child’s cup offered to the heavens simply fills itself up.

—There is no more heroic charge than “Begin again.”

In writing about the art of aphorisms, Adam Gopnik concludes that [w]here big books remind us of how hard the work of understanding can be, aphorisms remind us of how little we have to know to get the point. He understands the real virtue of a good aphorism: that it takes us quickly and easily to the point, for which there is no pre-requisite knowledge or context necessary. To offer the best gift in a nutshell is, indeed, a testament to the gift-giver. Thank goodness there are so many such gift-givers and gifts to be had.