Aphorisms and the Power of Big Truths in Small Packages

My next book, Secrets of Adulthood: Simple Truths for Our Complex Lives, will be published on April 1. In this book, I’ve distilled the lessons I’ve learned (and often re-learned) the hard way. To express these “secrets,” I’ve written more than two hundred aphorisms. 

People have asked me, “Why write in aphorisms?” 

For my whole life, I’ve loved the literary form of the aphorism. An aphorism is a concise statement that contains an expansive truth. Unlike the folk wisdom of proverbs—“A stumble may prevent a fall” or “You can’t push a rope”—aphorisms can be attributed to a partic­ular person.

Brief and sharp, aphorisms distill big ideas into few words; by saying little, they manage to suggest more. The clarity of their language promotes the clarity of our thinking.

As a child, I collected aphorisms in my “blank books”—books with blank pages that I filled with quo­tations illustrated by magazine cuttings. Once I be­came a writer exploring human nature, my admiration for the form grew, because the greatest aphorists grapple with the same fundamental questions I explore in my own work: How can we live happier, healthier, more productive, and creative lives?

The right aphorism, recalled at the right time, can shift our perspective instantly. When my family debated whether to get a dog, I was stuck in an endless pro/con analysis—until I remembered, “Choose the bigger life.” Decision made. We got the dog.

My bookshelves overflow with works by great aphorists: La Rochefoucauld (“It is much easier to stifle a first desire than to gratify all those that follow it”), Samuel Johnson (“All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle”), and Sarah Manguso (“Failure is good preparation for success, which comes as a pleasant surprise, but success is poor preparation for failure.”) Fiction, too, is an unexpected source of aphorisms, such as Iris Murdoch’s “Curiosity is not the same thing as a thirst for knowledge.”

These days, the aphorism is a mostly neglected art—though sometimes it pops up in its lesser forms, like the self-improvement cliché on social media or the office poster’s reminder about the value of teamwork.

This ancient discipline, however, still has tremendous power to communicate.

Because we must decide whether we agree or dis­agree, aphorisms provoke our reflection. We can also compare how different aphorists express a similar idea, as they often do, or contemplate how they contradict each other. For instance, Publilius Syrus observed, “No man is happy who does not think himself so,” while Vauvenargues wrote, “There are men who are happy without knowing it.”

The discipline of the aphorism forces precision of thinking. In my own writing, I’ve found that I can ex­press a big idea in a few words only if I truly under­stand what I’m trying to say.

And, as demonstrated by the haiku, the sonnet, and the thirty-minute sitcom, imagination is often better served by constraint than by freedom.

For years, I’ve refined my own aphorisms, weeding out observations that lack broader truth (such as “The tulip is an empty flower”). My book Secrets of Adulthood gathers my best aphorisms—guidance for those just entering adulthood and those still grappling with its challenges. Some aphorisms stand alone, others benefit from brief stories.

At the end, I also include practical hacks that, while not deeply philosophical, improve everyday life (for instance, “If you can’t find something, clean up”).

What a joy it has been to work on my Secrets of Adulthood, to distill my observations and experi­ences into general truths! After all, work is the play of adulthood.