Michael A. Firman
Aphorisms

Aphorisms...

Webster's New World Dictionary has the following definition:

Aphorism: A concise statement of a truth.

You will find some of my favorites on this page. They consist of quotes, sayings, misquotes, poems, theorems, and just about any little ditty that catches my fancy. They range from the ridiculous to the sublime. I will be adding to this page over time.

This one was attributed to William Blake but I don't have the reference or the exact quote. However, it is worth misquoting. 

"In order to understand what is enough, one must first experience more than enough."

And my corollary:

"Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess."

The Dreamy Sound of Bokushitsu's Shakuhachi Awakened Me
from Deep Sleep One Moonlit Night
A wonderful autumn night fresh and bright;
Over the echo of music and drums from a distant village
The single clear tone of a Shakuhachi brings a flood of tears -
Startling me from a deep melancholy dream.

— Ikkyu

"I don't know what's wrong, but I think I can fix it."

— Lou Warshawsky

This one I saw scratched into the paint on a prophylactic machine in a men's room at the Round Robin Pub in Champaign, Illinois sometime around 1978. 

"This gum tastes like shit."

This is one of my wife's favorites. 

"Much is too strange to be believed, but nothing is too strange to have happened."

— Thomas Hardy

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

— Albert Einstein