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.

In the rest of Nirvana all sorrows surcease: Only Buddha can guide to that city of Peace Whose inhabitants have the eternal release.

The human heart has a sigh lonelier than the cry of the bittern.

I would give more for the private esteem and love of one than for the public praise of ten thousand.

Reserve may be pride fortified in ice; dignity is worth reposing on truth.

Common sense is the average sensibility and intelligence of men undisturbed by individual peculiarities.

The devil may be bullied, but not the Deity.