Samuel Johnson on Aphorisms

“Pointed axioms and acute replies fly loose about the world, and are assigned successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate.”

“But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words.”

“I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.”