D, or 500 Maxims, Aphorisms, & Reflections
"Our curt tongue is perfectly suited to [aphorism], while the more complacent and mendacious our culture grows the more people will seek an escape into reason and self-scrutiny: as they do, let aphorism, with its dour laughter and coy candour, serve to welcome the refugees. Personally, too, though it is fun to chew over a good aphorism, it is still more fun to compose one — remodeling it, rephrasing it, rejecting it, restoring it, until an hour’s or a day’s reflection receives a tiny, shining monument."
A sample
#8
The summit of style is to kill with a word.
#371
Flattery is the only reliable tyrannicide.
#255
In health, the body obeys the will; in sickness, the will obeys the body.
#120
God’s punishment of human folly is not to send a plague.
#409
The notion of art for the sake of art is too close to the notion of life for the sake of life.
#395
Under a tyrant at least no one believes the newspapers.
#425
Good poetry says half of what it means; bad poetry means half of what it says.
#440
We enjoy talking about ourselves chiefly because it requires no effort.
#157
The unhappy see themselves through the eyes of the bad, the happy through the eyes of the good.
#332
Optimists go to war; pessimists make and keep the peace.
#349
To speak for one’s nation is to fancy oneself a king.
#209
Without moderation, self-denial is self-indulgence.
#342
Without law, power cannot sleep.
#243
To love others, we must first understand how they resemble us, because we have no other measure of esteem.
#450
Historians are hopelessly prejudiced in favour of historical significance.