The omniscient aphoristic archeologist Dave Lull uncovered this article by Roger Scruton in The American Spectator about “false aphorisms.” Scruton delivered a version of this piece at the first (and so far only) meeting of the World Aphorism Organization (WAO, pronounced WOW!) back in 2008. You can see a clip of his talk here and a debate on the aphoristic form among Scruton, John Lloyd and myself here. And lest we become too certain of our own opinions, Scruton quotes Ambrose Bierce’s definition of the brain:

An apparatus with which we think we think.