Epigrams Quotes

No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as 'what a man does with his solitude.' ~ C.S. Lewis

A soul that knows it is loved but does not itself love betrays its sediment: what is at bottom comes up."

―Epigrams and Interludes, Section 79 ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I will now sing another song for your pleasure. Now, if you like Phil Collins ... you should be shot in the head. ~ Robert Clark

I don't see how an epigram, being a bolt from the blue, with no introduction or cue, ever gets itself writ. ~ William James

Epigram and truth are rarely commensurate. Truth has to get somewhat chiseled, as it were, before it will fit into an epigram. ~ Joseph P. Farrell

The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram. ~ Don Marquis

Take my advice, dear reader, don't talk epigrams even if you have the gift. I know, to those have, the temptation is almost irresistible. But resist it. Epigram and truth are rarely commensurate. Truth has to be somewhat chiselled, as it were, before it will quite fit into an epigram. ~ Joseph P. Farrell

Too many seek to become epic, but settle for epigrams. ~ Thomas F. Shubnell

Champagne was discovered by a Catholic monk," said Bernard. "Took one swallow and burst out of his cellar yelling, 'I'm drinking stars, I'm drinking stars!' Tequila was invented by a bunch of brooding Indians. Into human sacrifice and pyramids. Somewhere between champagne and tequila is the secret history of Mexico, just as somewhere between beef jerky and Hostess Twinkies is the secret history of America. Or aren't you in the mood for epigrams? ~ Tom Robbins

I went to sleep with the tape player whispering softly in my ears such ego-building epigrams as, 'You are better than everyone else and you know it, and people who don't know it had better watch out,' and 'They are all fools and if you were in charge things would be different, and why aren't you in charge, it's easy enough. ~ Harry Harrison

It is with epigrams as with other inventions; the best ones annoy us because we didn't think of them ourselves. ~ Georg C. Lichtenberg

Somewhere in the world there is an epigram for every dilemma. ~ Hendrik Willem Van Loon

Victorian society was homogeneous without being homogenized. It was, to paraphrase the epigram about Parliament, a society of extreme eccentrics who agreed so well that they could afford to differ. ~ Kenneth Rexroth

There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté. ~ Margaret Atwood

Just as the orator marks his good things by a dramatic pause, or by raising and lowering his voice, or by gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams with italics, setting the little gem, so to speak, like a jeweler. ~ Oscar Wilde

Better a lively old epigram than a deadly new one. ~ Helen Rowland

Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all. ~ Nicolas Chamfort

The great periods of our life occur when we gain the courage to rechristen what is bad about us as what is best. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

There are men regarded today as brilliant economists, who deprecate saving and recommend squandering on a national scale as the way of economic salvation; and when anyone points to what the consequences of these policies will be in the long run, they reply flippantly, as might the prodigal son of a warning father: "In the long run we are all dead." And such shallow wisecracks pass as devastating epigrams and the ripest wisdom. ~ Henry Hazlitt

Life in the country teaches one that the really stimulating things are the quiet, natural things, and the really wearisome things are the noisy, unnatural things. It is more exciting to stand still than to dance. Silence is more eloquent than speech. Water is more stimulating than wine. Fresh air is more intoxicating than cigarette smoke. Sunlight is more subtle than electric light. The scent of grass is more luxurious than the most expensive perfume. The slow, simple observations of the peasant are more wise than the most sparkling epigrams of the latest wit. ~ Beverley Nichols

An epigram is the marriage of wit and wisdom; a wisecrack, their divorce. ~ Evan Esar

One needs to be either more brave or more good, because if courage is lacking goodness can substitute, while cowardice is the deficiency of both. ~ Neel Burton

Rather than waste precious time arguing, I went up and started serving my "sentence" without delay. It was usually about an hour for epigrams; somewhat longer for a paradox. ~ Peter De Vries

If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on. ~ David Foster Wallace

Some learned writers ... have compared a Scorpion to an Epigram ... because as the sting of the Scorpion lyeth in the tayl, so the force and virtue of an epigram is in the conclusion. ~ Edward Topsell

None of us is less fragile than the other; we simply shatter in different places. ~ Sheldon James Martin

I think Amy Winehouse's decision not to go to rehab was a bad one. In fact, I think it was the worst idea since Dodi Al Fayed said to Princess Diana, Ooh, look! A tunnel! Whack that seat belt off and let's have a fuck. ~ Robert Clark

An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly. ~ Edwin Percy Whipple

Epigrams need no crier, but are content with their own tongue. ~ Martial

My poetry is not lyric. The epigrams are lyric because they come from my youthful period of lyricism, but my other poetry is not lyric. ~ Ernesto Cardenal

I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men, and the colour of things: I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me: I summed up all things in a phrase, all existence in an epigram: whatever I touched I made beautiful ~ Oscar Wilde

Tweets are not diseased rings of glitchy minds. They're epigrams, aphorisms, maxims, dictums, taglines, captions, slogans, and adages. Some are art, some are commercial; these are forms with integrity. ~ Virginia Heffernan

There are expressions and bulls-eyes of the spirit, there are epigrams, a little handful of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society is suddenly crystallized. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

You can cram a truth into an epigram - the truth, never. ~ Norman Douglas

People tell me I shouldn't smoke because it is makes you look like a tit. I use exactly the same argument when people tell me they go to the gym. ~ Robert Clark

An epigram is a half-truth so stated as to irritate the person who believes the other half. ~ Shailer Mathews

Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic is to an epigram. ~ Karl Kraus

There is a homely directness about these rustic apothegms which makes them far more palatable than the strained and sophisticated epigrams of the characters of Oscar Wilde's plays, who are ever striving strenuously to dazzle us with verbal pyrotechnics. ~ Brander Matthews

Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink. ~ F.H. Bradley

Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
W. Somerset Maugham ~ W. Somerset Maugham