"Though it's an ancient art form, the aphorism is as spritely and as apposite as ever. Challenging and subversive, aphorisms deliver the short, sharp shocks of old forgotten truths. They are literature's hand luggage; They're light and compact, you can take them anywhere, and they contain everything you need to get through a tough day at the office or a dark night of the soul."
"Starting with the ancient Chinese and ending with contemporary Europeans and Americans, The World in a Phrase tells the story of the aphorism - the shortest and oldest written are form - through brief biographies of some of its greatest practitioners, Americans like Ambrose Bierre, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, and Dorothy Parker, great French aphorists like Montaigne, La Rochefisucauld, and Charnfort; philosophers like Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein; and prophets and sages like the Buddhist, Lao-tzu, and Jesus."--Jacket.
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