The World in a Phrase: A History of Aphorisms James Geary
For lovers of words and seekers of wisdom, a lively history of aphorisms?the shortest and oldest written art form?and the intriguing people who have penned them, from the Buddha to Emily Dickinson.
Bloomsbury Publishing
November 2005
192 pages ISBN: 1582344302 Hardcover Add to Wish List
Starting with the ancient Chinese and ending with
contemporary Europeans and Americans, The World in a Phrase
tells the story of the aphorism through spirited and
amusing biographies of some of its greatest practitioners:
Americans like Ambrose Bierce, Emily Dickinson, and Mark
Twain and Dorothy Parker; great French aphorists like
Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld, and Chamfort; philosophers
like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein; as well as
prophets and sages like the Buddha, Lao Tzu, and Jesus.
Though it’s an ancient art form, the aphorism is as
spritely and as apposite as ever. Challenging and
subversive, aphorisms deliver the short, sharp shocks of
old forgotten truths. They are literature’s hand luggage:
they’re light and compact, you can take them anywhere, and
they contain everything you need to get through a rough day
at the office or a dark night of the soul. But more than
just a literary history, The World in a Phrase is a
personal memoir of how aphorisms changed Geary’s life—and
how, if not for an aphorism by W.H. Auden, he might never
have met his wife. In our modern age of drive-through
culture, pre-digested soundbites, and manufactured
sentiment, The World in a Phrase explores how aphorisms
still retain the power to instigate and inspire, enlighten
and enrage, entertain and edify.
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