Aphorisms by George S. Clason

The tradition of penning personal finance books is very old. It started, like so many things in America, with Benjamin Franklin. In 1758, he published The Way to Wealth, a compilation of some of the money-related aphorisms contained in Poor Richard’s Almanac over the previous 25 years. The Way to Wealth is the source of [...]

On ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’

In 1965, Robert K. Merton published On the Shoulders of Giants, a profound, provocative peregrination along the trail of the aphorism
If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Merton demonstrates — through a series of astonishingly erudite, scholarly and witty digressions — that this saying, commonly attributed to Isaac Newton, [...]

Aphorisms by Lieh Tzu

Together with the books of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, the book of Lieh Tzu makes up the trinity of Taoist classics. Lieh Tzu is the name of an ancient sage mentioned by Chuang Tzu but, like most Taoist texts, the book of that name was probably not written by the man to whom it [...]

On Bubbles

Fragile, gelatinous, bubbles ripple into existence from the thinnest of liquids, composed of nothing more substantial than some surface tension and the syrup of their own viscosity. Perhaps the precariousness, and ultimate futility, of their lives makes them corpulent, lazy. At first, they seem to want to climb but are quickly resigned to their [...]

Aphorisms by Daniel J. Cauchie

Daniel J.Cauchie is a Belgian poet who, as he describes it himself, “got lost for 40 years in the world of international business and intrigues.” He’s now found his way back to poetry and philosophy, and writes aphorisms from his philosophical redoubt in the Swiss mountains. During World War II, he miraculously escaped [...]

Aphorims by Neil McLachlan

Neil McLachlan has presented television programs, worked as a theater usher, done a bit of stand-up comedy, and went slightly mad in a telesales job. He suffers from insomnia and says of his aphorisms: “a good deal of them (too many for comfort) [are] concerned with despair and disillusionment in one way or another.” Which [...]


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