The best aphorisms are.... portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs.

Courage makes a man more than himself; for he is then himself plus his valor.

Cunning is the dwarf of wisdom.

False eloquence is exaggeration; true eloquence is emphasis.

How sublime is the audacious tautology of Mohammed, God is God!

The devil may be bullied, but not the Deity.

Willmott, the English essayist, says poetry is the natural religion of literature.