778 A History of Aphorisms (with James Geary) | My Last Book with Paul Chrystal

Summary

Podcast Summary: The History of Literature, Ep. 778 – A History of Aphorisms (with James Geary) | My Last Book with Paul Chrystal

Date: February 23, 2026
Host: Jacke Wilson
Guests: James Geary, Paul Chrystal

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the world of aphorisms—those brief, witty, and profound snippets of wisdom that have peppered human discourse for millennia. Jacke Wilson is joined by James Geary, a noted aphorism collector and author, to discuss the history, definition, and ongoing relevance of aphorisms. The episode also features a segment with prolific author Paul Chrystal, who shares his “last book” selection, reflecting on mortality and joy through poetry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Impact of Aphorisms – The Auden Story (04:35 – 08:22)

• A Life Changed by an Aphorism: James Geary recounts how a college “happening” involving aphorisms led to meeting his future wife. He describes placing aphorisms inside a globe and inviting others to read them aloud (05:38).
• Notable Aphorism: “Knowing is more fun than guessing.” (W.H. Auden)
  • The twist: A young woman responded with the reverse—“Guessing is more fun than knowing”—which became a catalyst for their relationship.
• Quote:
  “That's, ladies and gentlemen, how aphorisms can change your life.”
  —James Geary (08:19)

2. Aphorisms as Engaged Wisdom (08:22 – 10:53)

• Aphorisms invite engagement and debate, not just passive consumption.
• Jacke observes:
  “...aphorisms are something to engage with, that it's not just something we passively receive or memorize…” (08:22)
• Geary emphasizes their practical philosophy and ability to provoke thought and reevaluation.

3. Contradiction and Provocation in Aphorisms (10:53 – 14:15)

• Aphorisms often exist in contradictory pairs, each equally valid.
  • Example:
    • Samuel Johnson: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
    • Ambrose Bierce: “Patriotism is the first refuge of a scoundrel.” (11:32 – 13:06)
• Notable Quote:
  “Aphorisms are the opposite of dogma. Aphorisms are not a set of preordained verities handed down by some authority which you follow blindly. Aphorisms are kind of provocative statements. They challenge you, they provoke you...”
  —James Geary (12:57)

4. Defining Aphorisms: The Five Laws (15:43 – 23:19)

James Geary presents five “laws” he formulated for what constitutes a true aphorism:

(1) It must be brief (15:43)

• Distinguishes aphorisms from speeches or sermons.

(2) It must be definitive (16:52)

• “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.” —Stanislav Jerzy Lec
• “Aphorisms are definitive because they sort of trigger that reaction—immediate agreement, immediate disagreement, or pausing to think.” —James Geary (17:28)

(3) It must be personal (18:49)

• Tied to an identifiable voice; proverbs often start as aphorisms but lose personal attribution over time.

(4) It must have a twist (21:04)

• Uses wordplay, reversal, surprise.
• Example: Mae West: “It’s not the men in your life that matter, it’s the life in your men.”
  “…aphorisms are always a bit skewed, and that’s why they’re so remarkable.” —James Geary (21:28)

(5) It must be philosophical (22:57)

• Contains broader, often existential meaning.
• “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” —attributed to Churchill (23:35)

5. Ancient Roots and Ubiquity (24:25 – 29:57)

• Aphorisms may be humanity’s oldest literary form, present in ancient Egypt (Tahotep’s maxims) and China (the I Ching).
• “The earliest forms of what I... would call literature are aphorisms.” —James Geary (24:52)
• Aphorisms have been cultivated by people from a range of vocations: sages, philosophers, humorists, artists, novelists, and more.

6. Deliberate vs. Accidental Aphorists (28:28 – 30:30)

• Some writers set out to write aphorisms (e.g., Stanisław Lec); others embed them in larger works (e.g., Emerson, Dorothy Parker, Emily Dickinson).

7. Aphorisms in Oratory & Everyday Life (29:57 – 32:32)

• Aphorisms grab listeners’ attention during speeches and journalism; “the kicker” in news is often aphoristic.

Notable Modern Example

• Ruha Benjamin: “Resistance is fertile.” (31:20)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Philosophy:
  “Aphorisms are philosophical in the sense that we all confront these existential philosophical questions every single day... They give us really practical, down to earth advice about how to navigate these situations.”
  —James Geary (09:07)

• On Aphorism Utility:
  “...they’re not the warm and fuzzy phrases in greeting cards. They are much more brusque, confrontational, and subversive. You don’t curl up with a good book of aphorisms. They leap off the page and unfurl inside you.”
  —Jacke Wilson quoting Geary (14:15)

• On Their Emotional Role:
  “They're mnemonic devices for existential crises...”
  —James Geary (14:34)

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Exploration of Classic Aphorists: Book Showcase (34:14 – 47:10)

Jacke and James discuss key aphorists, using Geary’s book The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism as a structure. Selected examples:

• Confucius:
  “When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honors are things to be ashamed of.” (35:16)

  • Explores the nature of virtue in leadership and society.

• All is Vanity — Ecclesiastes/Montaigne

  • Montaigne’s physical and psychological “surrounding” by aphorisms, as he carved them into his study beams (38:00).

• E.M. Cioran:
  “This very second has vanished forever, lost in the anonymous mass of the irrevocable... Everything is unique and insignificant.” (40:25)

  • Geary reflects:
    “Aphorisms are, in a way, like vaccines—especially these really cynical, dark aphorisms. They inject a little of the dark sides of human life and... it builds our resilience.” (41:14)

• Abraham Lincoln:
  “I have often been forced to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that there was no place else to go.” (43:17)

  • Shows how aphorisms can both acknowledge despair and point to hope.

• Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach:
  “An aphorism is the last link in a long chain of thought.” (44:24)

  • “Though the aphorism is brief, the kind of thinking and pondering and musing that it provokes... can last a lifetime.” —James Geary (46:33)
  • Ambrose Bierce-style inversion: “Actually, I think it’s the first link in a long chain of thought.” (47:03)

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[Segment: "My Last Book" with Paul Chrystal] (48:41 – 55:46)

Prompt: What would be your last book to read?

• Paul Chrystal’s Choices:

  • Initially muses on Albert Camus’ A Happy Death—but finds it “too obvious” and problematic.
  • Ultimately selects a poem from Roger McGough’s Selected Poems, “Let Me Die a Young Man’s Death".

• Memorable Moment:
  Paul reads the darkly comic poem aloud, contemplating the vibrancy of living with youthful energy, even at life’s end (52:50–54:04).

• Quote:
  “Let me die a young man’s death, not a... candle-wax and waning death. Not a curtain drawn by angels born. What a nice way to go Death.”
  —Roger McGough as read by Paul Chrystal (52:50)

• Reflection:
  Discussion on wanting to maintain the joys and playfulness of youth into old age, not simply succumbing to the conventions of “dying old.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• James Geary Introduction & Auden Story: 04:32 – 08:22
• Engaging with Aphorisms: 08:22 – 10:53
• Contradiction in Aphorisms: 10:53 – 14:15
• Five Laws of Aphorisms: 15:43 – 23:19
• History & Ancient Aphorisms: 24:25 – 29:57
• Deliberate vs. Accidental Aphorists: 28:28 – 30:30
• Aphorisms in Rhetoric & Journalism: 29:57 – 32:32
• Book Chapter Aphorisms Discussion: 34:14 – 47:10
• Paul Chrystal "Last Book" Segment: 48:41 – 55:46

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Podcast Tone & Style

• Reflective, witty, and engaging: Jacke’s style is conversational and curious; Geary is insightful and passionate about aphorisms as tools for living and thinking.
• Memorable Quotes pepper the conversation, often with spontaneous laughter, personal anecdotes, and a warmth for the subject.
• Paul Chrystal’s segment adds playfulness and existential reflection, mixing humor with meditations on the meaning and manner of one’s final days or moments.

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Summary Takeaways

• Aphorisms are brief, definitive, personal, twisty, and philosophical—existing to provoke, not soothe.
• They have existed since the dawn of literature and remain embedded in all forms of writing and speech.
• Their power lies not just in what they say, but in how they spark contemplation, debate, and sometimes, life-changing encounters.
• Embracing the vitality and surprise of aphorisms—like that found in poetry—is a reminder to seek joy and meaning throughout all stages of life.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Jack Wilson]

The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio. Hey, folks, this is it. I know it's gloomy, I know it's winter, we're all stuck inside, but the spring is coming. Hooray. Hooray. Let's start planning the fun things we're going to do. Here's your chance to join me and Emma on the very first History of Literature Podcast tour. We'll be headed to Literary England for some leisurely travel with visits to key literary sites, nice hotels, nice restaurants, and good people to share some stimulating conversation, including professors and writers and biographers and all kinds of surprises along the way. We'll see the Dickens Museum and the globe theater and Dr. Johnson's house and eat at the pubs and restaurants where famous writers got their grub and and lifted a glass to literature. March 1st is the last day to sign up and we would love to have you check out the [e-mail] or at John Shores Travel S H O R S I hope you can join us. Kraft Mac and Cheese is better than 90s hip hop. We'll remind you of your childhood without making you feel incredibly old. Kraft Mac and Cheese. Best thing ever. Hello. Oh, don't you always know the perfect thing to say? Eight hours too late. That's a sensation we've all felt, isn't it? In fact, you might almost say my little sentence could be a piece of folk wisdom, a humorous observation, a little bit of insight into the human condition. I always know the perfect thing to say. Eight hours too late. I like it. Maybe this will catch on and become part of the world's collective mind. Well, I don't mean that too literally. I suspect someone has already said something very close to it. But if it were an insight that I was making that wasn't quite so common, my little sentence might qualify as a great aphorism. And in some ways it's an aphorism about aphorisms. It's that feeling of knowing the right thing to say at the right time. Hopefully the perfect rejoinder, the most eloquent quip us at our smartest and most insightful and most persuasive. An aphorism, we call it. But what exactly is an aphorism? Our guest today, James Geary, has been collecting and cataloging aphorisms for decades. He joins us today for some definitions, some history and background, some distinctions, and above all, some celebration of the greatest aphorisms and the greatest aphorists. That, plus a my last book From Paul Crystol today on the History of Literature. Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. I'm Jack Wilson. Not much needs to be said here. Our guest will explain it all. I'll just remind you that you have one week left to sign up for the History of Literature podcast tour. The deadline is March 1st. I do hope you can join us for this spectacular trip through London, Oxford, and Bath in May with our small group of hardy literature fans. Learn [e-mail] okay, here we go. I love stuff like this. Language, communication. We humans, well, in a lot of ways, we humans are kind of lousy, but our brains are still amazing. And at their best, we come up with things like love poems and creation myths and aphorisms. James Geary is an expert in aphorisms, so let's ask him about them now. Okay. Joining me now is James Geary, who is an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and he's also the author of works such as Wit's what Wit Is, How It Works and why We need it, and I Is an the Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World. He's here today to discuss the newly released second edition of his book, the World in a A Brief History of the Aphorism, which first came out 20 years ago. James Geary, welcome to the History of Literature.

[James Geary]

Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here.

[Jack Wilson]

So let's start with the story of how an aphorism by W.H. auden changed your life. What happened there?

[James Geary]

All right, now diving right in, that is a story I tell in the very first chapter of the book. When I was in college, I used to put on these kind of happenings, so kind of spontaneous pseudo performances that would occur in public places around campus. And I was writing poetry at the time and very interested in kind of getting literature off the page and into real life. I was very passionate about that. And actually, still I'm passionate about that. Yeah, yeah. And so one of these little happenings was I took a globe and I cut the arctic circle off the top, and I filled it with 50 or 60 little slips of paper, each of which had an aphorism on upon it and was an aphorism. Some of them were by me and. But most of them were by famous authors.

[Jack Wilson]

Now, were you. Did you copy those out of a book, or were you already kind of a magpie of aphorisms, collecting them from various different sources and so on?

[James Geary]

Yeah, I was a. I was a Magpie on steroids of collecting aphorisms. And so I, I've been collecting them since I was like a teenager in high school.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

And reading them since I was 8 years old. And so I had a. A pretty vast collection even by that time, in my early 20s. And so I went around the cafeteria and asked people to take a slip of paper from the Globe and read the aphorism aloud. And when they did, I moved on to the next table and I did the same thing until all the aphorisms were gone from the Globe. And one person I offered the Globe to was someone I had never met before, a young woman who, whom I had noticed around campus because she was very attractive, but I had never spoken to her. And she took an aphorism from The Globe by W.H. auden, which goes, knowing is more fun than guessing. And so she picked that aphorism from the Globe and read it aloud. And I moved on. And 49 or 59 other people picked aphorisms and read them aloud as well. The next day I found in my little pigeonhole mailbox on campus another little slip of paper with only these words written on it. Guessing is more fun than knowing the opposite of the odden aphorism.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

So I remembered who had chosen that Auden aphorism. And later that day I saw this young woman, whose name is Linda, going to class. I was walking down the hallway one way and she was going the other way. And I, as I passed her, I said, you're right, sometimes guessing is more fun than knowing. And she kind of blushed and just kept walking. But later that evening she showed up at my dorm room door. And we've been married for more than 30 years and have three kids now. So that's, ladies and gentlemen, that's how aphorisms can change your life. And I still do this Globe exercise. I. I'm doing some talks at the moment for the book at literary festivals and bookstores. And the talk is a very, maybe a 10 or 15 minute kind of introduction and little mini essay about aphorisms and why I love aphorisms. But most of the rest of the talk is just me walking around in the audience asking people to pick an aphorism from the Globe and read it aloud. And then I talk about that aphorist and, and that aphorism and other things. So I, all these years later, I'm still doing that Globe happening.

[Jack Wilson]

What I love about that story and why I asked you to tell it, other than it just has such a beautiful and warm kind of Happy ending. But it gives us some insight into you and who you were and your love for these things. But also I love that it gives us the message that aphorisms are something to engage with, that it's not just something we passively receive or, or memorize, a list of aphorisms or something, but that you think about it and you think, well, yeah, I can agree with that to a certain point, but there's also something that I have to contribute to that. Or most of the time when I read them, I think, oh yes, that is so true. But a lot of times you think, well, wait, maybe that's not how it has been for me.

[James Geary]

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And like aphorisms are. One thing I love about them is that they're philosophical, but not. Well, they can be philosophical in the abstract sense, you know, being and non being. But mostly they're philosophical in a very practical sense, like how do I live my life? Is guessing more fun than knowing? Or is knowing more fun than guessing? Because one of the other, if I choose one or the other, it will kind of determine how I approach my life and how I decide which things to do, which things not to do. So I think aphorisms are philosophical in the sense that we all confront these existential philosophical questions every single day. And that's what literature is all about. You know, who am I, Why am I here? What is the good life? How should I express myself? How should I spend my time? What profession should I choose? How do I navigate difficult relationships? These are all kind of daily challenges that we face. And aphorisms give us really practical, down to earth advice about how to, how to navigate these situations. And you're also, I totally agree with you that it's important to note that you don't, do not have to agree with an aphorism. The function of the aphorism is to confront you, to provoke you to think things through and maybe rethink some assumptions or biases or opinions you held in the past because you see an issue in a different light as a result of the aphorism. And I think that's, that's captured by my wife Linda's response to Auden, which is just as valid and just as philosophical as his original aphorism.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah, the story reminds me of, of something I read in a Saul Bello novel where a character is quoting Socrates and says the unexamined life is not worth living. And the narrator responds, and the over examined life makes you wish you were dead.

[James Geary]

Exactly. There's and that's the whole. The history of the aphorism is filled with contradictory aphorisms.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah, right.

[James Geary]

That's what makes it so rich, because aphorisms are true. You could say any aphorism is true, but the opposite aphorism is also true. So, yeah, an example is Dr. Samuel Johnson.

[Jack Wilson]

Yes, I had this. I had this on my list. I'm such a big Dr. Johnson fan and I didn't think anyone would ever one up him. And then here comes Ambrose Beers. Exactly. So why don't. I'll let you tell the story.

[James Geary]

Yeah. Well, Samuel Johnson is an amazing aphorist and he's well represented in the, in the book. And one of his aphorisms, kind of a well known one, is patriotism, is the last refuge of a scoundrel. And you know, I think that especially in his time, but also today, and maybe especially today, that has a lot of relevance and resonance. But Ambrose Pierce, a hundred years later, who also composed his own dictionary called the Devil's Dictionary, he begged to differ with Dr. Johnson. And he said patriotism is the first refuge of a scoundrel. And both are equally valid, both are equally legitimate, and depending on the circumstances, both are equally true. And I think the, the great virtue of aphorisms is like the aphorisms are the opposite of dogma. Aphorisms are not a set of preordained verities handed down by some authority which you follow blindly. Aphorisms are kind of provocative statements. They challenge you, they provoke you. And as you were saying earlier, one of the greatest propagations is to do things differently, not just muse to yourself and think, that's, yeah, that's really deep. But to change your life.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah, right, right.

[James Geary]

I'll give you a quick example because this also happens to be the, the very first aphorism I remember reading. And it's. I found it in the quotable quote section of Reader's Digest back in the day. And it goes like this. The difference between a rut and a grave is the depth. And that one, I read that when I was 8 years old and I had no idea what it meant, of course, and I had never heard the word aphorism before, but I knew there was something special about the way that that sentence was constructed and the imagery and the metaphors. And I knew there was something deep there and I couldn't quite grasp it. But when I got older and I was facing, you know, challenging, difficult, dissatisfying times in my professional life, I would, that aphorism would pop up in My mind. And I would ask myself, am I just walking to work or am I digging my own grave?

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

And that's the kind of practical wisdom that aphorisms provoke you into. Not just thinking about something, but doing something differently as a result of how aphorisms can change your mind.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. I liked this quote of yours so much that I wrote it down where you say, aphorisms are not the warm and fuzzy phrases found in greeting cards. They are much more brusque, confrontational, and subversive. You don't curl up with a good book of aphorisms. They leap off the page and unfurl inside you.

[Paul Kristol]

Ooh.

[James Geary]

Yes. Well, that one certainly leapt off the page and unfurled inside me, and it's been unfurled in there for decades. Yeah, it's. It's just a. They're little. Another way to think of them as, like, mnemonic devices for existential crises, you know?

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

Or not just crises, but any kind of intense experience. It could be grief or joy, success or failure. But at moments of intense emotion, intense kind of psychological experience, we instinctively reach for words of wisdom. And that's what, you know, greeting cards are all about as well, that those are not aphorisms. Those are the opposite of aphorisms. But in those moments of intense emotion, intense experience, we instinctively want a signpost, a guide, something to point us in the right direction. And that's when aphorisms come in really, really handy. And in my life, that's when aphorisms kind of pop into my mind and give me a little firmer psychological ground to stand on to decide what's next.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. Okay. So let's do some defining. You helpfully provide the five laws of the aphorism, and I'll just kind of go through them and ask you questions about some of these laws, because some of them are very intuitive, and some of them, I think, could use a little more explanation. So the first law is it must be brief. So that's a pretty easy one. And we would, I think, all associate that with an aphorism. We don't think that a sermon is one or the Gettysburg Address or something. You know, we all know kind of the general length of an aphorism and when it would start to push the limits of that. But it did make me think, well, what are some things that are not an aphorism, but that might look like aphorisms, you know, And I was trying to write down some common stock phrases or something, and maybe I'll get to those after we talk about more of the laws of the aphorism. Because in other words, I just want to make the point. Not every brief witty saying or every brief memorable saying is necessarily an aphorism. Your second law is it must be definitive. So what do you mean by that?

[James Geary]

I mean, no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. That is an aphorism by Stanislav Jerzyletz, a Polish aphorist who wrote during Soviet era. And for me, it's a quintessential aphorism because it presents no evidence.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Geary]

There are no caveats. It's not like, you know.

[Jack Wilson]

Right.

[James Geary]

Under certain circumstances.

[Jack Wilson]

Yes. Right.

[James Geary]

It's not too warm or not too cold. Some snowflakes on occasion.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

Might be irresponsible in an avalanche.

[Paul Kristol]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

So I think aphorisms are definitive because they're like. If you think of like an op ed in a newspaper, which is an argument, an opinion. An op ed is an argument and opinion, but condensed into one sentence. And what makes them provocative and thought provoking is the fact that they're so definitive. And that's what provokes the reaction. Either immediate agreement, immediate disagreement, or a kind of pause and thinking. I never thought of it that way before. So they have to be definitive because that's the way they kind of trigger that critical thinking. Yeah.

[Jack Wilson]

They're sort of coming at you with a kind of self confidence or. I see what you mean. A definitive statement about the world, almost as if it's some kind of maxim or law.

[James Geary]

Exactly.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

An aphorisms. I think self confidence is the great way to think about it. And. And sometimes some aphorists are borderline arrogant.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

Or even really arrogant. There's some. You know, an aphorism can. The tone. The tone of an aphorism can. Can rub you the wrong way. And there's some aphorists who are very, very strident, and there's some who are more gentle. But either way, and. And everything in between and along that whole spectrum of tone, they're still definitive.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. Okay. So the third law is it must be personal. Yeah. You mean that's because some of these that I've. I've read are not necessarily. They're not like first person personal, but they. They're about humans, I guess. Is that the way to think of it?

[James Geary]

Yeah, it's that. But it's also. It must have an identifiable author. It's associated. It's associated with a person and has a personality. So we were talking about Ambrose Beer a minute ago and his dictionary of terms that. That is called the Devil's Dictionary. And when you read an aphorism by him like this one, this is a definition of misfortune. Misfortune, noun. The kind of fortune that never misses that is got Ambrose Beer's personality stamped all over it. Yeah, yeah, he's funny, but he's cynical and. And he's. He's dark. And so that's what I mean about bipersonal. And also proverbs. Like a proverb like let sleeping dogs lie, that was originally an aphorism because somewhere, sometime, someone thought of it for the very first time and they either said it or wrote it down. And other people knew who said it and who wrote it down, but it was so brilliant. We think of proverbs as cliches, but if you think back to when it was. When a proverb was first coined, it was brilliant. And that is actually a brilliant image. Let sleeping dogs lie. Don't disturb them because you're only cause trouble. That is a great metaphor to express that kind of human situation. But the reason we think it's cliched is because everybody thought it was so brilliant when it was first invented that everybody started using it. And, you know, gradually, just like a. An old coin, the identity of the author got worn away. And once that happens, an aphorism becomes a proverb.

[Jack Wilson]

Right, Right. Okay. Yeah. I was going to ask you about the difference, but I think that kind of covers it. Okay. Fourth law is it must have a twist.

[James Geary]

Yes. So the Ambrose Bierce aphorism, misfortune, the kind of fortune that never misses aphorisms, they give you a jolt, they have a spark. And the twist can be linguistic, so it could be based on a pun or a reversal of terms or some form of wordplay or a kind of clever joke. But it's. Aphorisms are always a bit skewed, and that's why they're so remarkable. And that's why they. They catch our attention as a literary form. They're kind of acrobatic afores to do pirouettes with words and backflips. And they juggle ideas and juxtapose strange things like Stanislav lets and the no Snowflake in an Avalanche. So that's part of the twist, but the other part of the twist can be emotional or psychological. And that's where the. The surprise factor comes in. So a great one by Mae West. There's so many great ones by Mae west, the American actress from the 30s and 40s. It's not the men in your life that Matter. It's the life in your men. Or when women go wrong, men go right after them. So that's got linguistic twist to it, but it's also got a kind of logical psychological twist to it that kind of like a joke. It leads you to expect one thing and then deliver something else.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. Like, I. I've noted a couple of examples here, and I thought, for example, that the. The phrase we shall fight on the beaches is probably not an aphorism, but the only thing we have to fear is fear itself might be an aphorism.

[James Geary]

Excellent. Yep. I totally agree. And we will fight on the beaches is a great example of soaring rhetoric, but it's not an aphorism.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. And even though you would say, well, it's brief, it's definitive, it's personal, but it. It doesn't have a twist. And it also. We're. We're coming up on the fifth law of the aphorism, which is it must be philosophical. I'm not sure it's. It's all that philosophical either, but it definitely doesn't really have a twist.

[James Geary]

It doesn't have a twist, and it's not philosophical. But it is inspirational. Or maybe not inspirational. Motivational. That's Churchill, obviously, one of his most famous speeches. But Churchill himself was also an outstanding.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Geary]

He was a great orator, a great writer, and a great aphorist. This is a saying attributed to him, and I haven't been able to determine whether he actually originated it or not, but it's a wonderful aphorism and is. Even if he didn't write it, it does kind of. It's very close to his style. When you're going through hell. Keep going. And the sentiment there is the same as the one in the speech. You know, we will fight on the beaches. But the. The one is a speech and a. And a great example of rhetoric, and the other is an aphorism. And the difference is exactly what you said. The way that it's phrased, it has a twist, and the aphorism has that kind of added layer of philosophical meaning that is applicable to multiple situations and not just, you know, World War II.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. Okay, so let's start talking about the history of the aphorism. You say that it's been called the oldest written art form on the planet. What's the evidence for some of our earliest known aphorisms?

[James Geary]

Right. The evidence for that statement is that I said it, so it must be right.

[Jack Wilson]

It's been said. Yeah, it's been called. Nice use of the passive Voice there. I should.

[James Geary]

I should also note that the five laws, I made them up. And so after much research. But obviously people are free to disagree. The oldest books that we know of, or things that we would. Well, the oldest form of writing are essentially receipts, and they come from Sumeria, ancient Egypt, some 5,000. Between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago. So, you know, Joe Smith received six bushels of grain from, you know, Frank Jones. That's the. And these are on clay tablets. But the earliest forms of what I, in any case would call literature are aphorisms. And they also come from ancient Egypt and ancient China. So in ancient Egypt, the. The local ruler of whatever kingdom would compile like a series of maxims of how to govern and how to behave as a ruler and pass that on to his son, who would inevitably inherit his throne. And these are. There's. Tahotep is one of. One of these ancient Egyptian rulers, and he lived and ruled, I think, 3500 BCE and he passed on a series of aphorisms to his son, which we still have. And one of them was he who knows how to obey becomes one obeyed. And so that's another example of a kind of a practical piece of advice that also has philosophical connotations. So around the same time in China, the. The I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes, which is based on Taoism and the philosophy of yin and yang, everything that exists eventually turns into its opposite. You know, morning turns into night, spring turns into fall, life turns into death, but also death turns into life. And the I Ching is a collection of like 64 different scenarios, archetypal human situations and experiences. And it's made up of just these collection of sometimes very obscure aphoristic pieces of advice about things to think about or things to do when, when you're in that particular situation. The I Ching, I think, is considered not just by me, among the oldest books, what we would call a book in existence. And in ancient Egypt, that's the wisdom of the rulers is among the oldest literary forms. So I also make the argument the aphorism is the most ancient literary form, so it's precedes the novel by many millennia or the short story, maybe not the poem and maybe not the song, but maybe it's. It's in that same age range.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah, sure. One of the things I really gave me a lot to think about from your book is that the, the, the greatest practitioners and the people that you've collected have so many different vocations or positions in life that we have sages and philosophers and we've already talked about people like Churchill, but we've also talked about humorists like Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker. And yet it can also be novelists, George Eliot and activists and poets and artists and songwriters. Like, it seems almost as if the, the aphorist could, that, that could accompany a lot of different kind of activities.

[James Geary]

Yeah, the range of professions among aphorists is pretty, is pretty stunning. And that kind of speaks to one of the. I guess maybe it's not a paradox, but one of the unusual aspects of the aphorism is that there are people who like, are aphorists and they sit down, when they sit down to write, to write aphorisms. Stanislav let's, for example, he wrote aphorisms. But then there are many, many others whose aphorisms occur in other forms of writing. So Ralph Waldo Emerson, a poet and essayist, most of his aphorisms come from his essays and from his journals. Dorothy Parker, a poet, Emily Dickinson, contemporary poet, K. Ryan, they write poems, but their poems are short. And entire poems are both poems and aphorisms at the same time. So there's like two kinds of the deliberate aphorist and then the accidental aphorist. And by far the greater number of people who produce aphorisms are accidental aphorists. They're writing something else. And aphorisms occur in that writing. Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, they wrote essays and speeches. But on almost every page there's some incandescent phrase that you can just extract from the essay and it stands alone as an essay in itself.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. Because you make the point that what aphorisms do for us, they shock us with wisdom, they amuse us, they make us see the world or language or humanity in a new or different way. You can imagine that that is what people giving speeches will want to do to their audience. And if the aphorism is a handy tool that they can use to do it, it would come in quite naturally to occur to them that, well, this is something that I want to include. I can really communicate my point this way.

[James Geary]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, I just had that very experience a couple days ago. I was listening to a speech by Ruha Benjamin. She is an author and she has a. Her most recent book out is about imagination. She's a MacArthur fellow, so she received one of the so called genius awards and she was giving a talk about her book. And the talk was about being creative as a form of resilience and in the face of all kinds of challenges, political, social, racial, economic, environmental. And just like casually in the middle of her speech, she kind of paused and said, resistance is fertile. And of course, that's an incredibly clever play. Resistance is futile.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

But it's also a wonderful positive aphorism that speaks to it summarized her whole speech in three words that resistance is not, is not only like a negative reaction to oppression, it can be a positive constructive action as well. It can be fertile ground for problem solving, for new growth, for all kinds of creative solutions. So I think you're absolutely right. And if also it, it happens in journalism. I worked for many, many years as a journalist too. And in journalism, the end of a story is called the kicker. And it's called the kicker because you want to propel people forward. When they're finished reading the story, you want to give them a takeaway, something to think about. And often the kicker would be aphorism adjacent, if not a full blown aphorism. Because the kicker also, just like an aphorism, is meant to condense the whole kind of significance of the article into that last section and make it portable, like an aphorism is portable, so people can continue to think about it after they've finished reading the article.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. Okay, let's take a quick break and come back with more from James Geary.

[James Geary]

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[James Geary]

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[Jack Wilson]

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[James Geary]

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[James Geary]

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[Jack Wilson]

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[Paul Kristol]

Foreign.

[Jack Wilson]

Okay, we're back. So, James, I thought I might set this up. I wanted to talk about your book and how it's organized and give listeners a taste of the book and some of the aphorisms here. But since you mentioned walking around with a bowl or a globe with aphorisms inside, I thought I would set myself up as your audience member and I'll give the the name of the chapter of the book and then I'll tell you the aphorism that I liked best from that chapter and you can explain it a little more to the listeners. How does that sound?

[James Geary]

Okay, great. That's a great idea. A virtual globe. I'm passing a virtual globe to you now.

[Jack Wilson]

Okay. So the chapter is called We Are what We think Ancient sages, preachers and Prophets. And the one that I picked out of that was when a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill, governed, riches and honors are things to be ashamed of.

[James Geary]

That's a great one. That's Confucius.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

And Confucius was an itinerant scholar and weirdly, during his own lifetime he couldn't find. He all that he wanted to do was to become an advisor to some prince or some local ruler somewhere and no one would take him on. He, you know, wandered from state to state in, in China and had a band of followers, but he never really found that position as a, I guess we would call him a policy analyst today. And then strangely enough, centuries after his death, for a time Confucianism was the state national philosophy of China. And I think what Confucius was all about was about the moral ruler. And perhaps that's why he found it so hard to get a job in government. And that aphorism that you just read I think is a great example of how he evaluated successful leadership. And I think what he's saying is if your country is well governed and there are still people who are in poverty and don't have enough to eat, or aren't properly clothed, or aren't properly educated or don't have health care, that is something to be ashamed of as a leader. Because how can your country be well governed when your people are suffering? But a country that is ill governed, where corruption rules and self dealing rules and the priority is not the people, but the priority is the people in power, then riches and honors are things to be ashamed of because that is against the moral conduct of a ruler. And I think that Juxtaposition is so powerful. And you just have to look at the world today, the United States and other countries, and apply Confucius's aphorism to those countries and see on which side of the equation the government would fall.

[Jack Wilson]

Okay, number two, the chapter title is upon the highest throne in the World, we are seated still upon our arses. European moralists. And the one I chose here was from. Well, I won't. I won't give the explanation. I'll let you do that. But the one I chose is all is Vanity.

[James Geary]

Oh, so that is from. I think it's from Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. And that was carved onto the ceiling beams of Montaigne's study in France. Michel Montaigne, who wrote the essays, that thousand plus page collection of essays.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah. Himself a great aphorist.

[James Geary]

Indeed. And he's another example of someone who is writing a different form essays in which they're just completely studded and crammed with wonderful aphorisms. And he was someone who, he desperately wanted words to live by, and he was a collector of aphorisms. And when I was a kid, I had, you know, rock and roll posters of David Bowie and Pink Floyd and George Harrison, and I didn't know how to collect aphorisms, so I came up with the idea to flip those posters around so the picture was facing the wall and I wrote the aphorisms on the back as a way to keep track of them. And I still have those posters and they're still crammed with aphorisms I wrote many decades ago. Montaigne did the same kind of thing, except he had them carved into his. The ceiling beams in his. In his study. And you can actually visit his chateau in France and you can visit his study and they're still there and you can read them. And for him, it's like what we were saying earlier. He wanted to be surrounded by aphorisms both literally and metaphorically, so that everywhere he looked, or he could just gaze up in the ceiling and be confronted by all his vanity and have that little provocation, have that little reminder of. Yeah, to keep in mind, like, what are the important things? What are the priorities? All his vanity and what am I going to do with my life? And he was, you know, that's what the essays are about. How should I spend my life? And he was the first person, at least in Western culture, to really pose that question to himself and then write about it from the first person perspective. So he's a great example of someone who was wanted to just be surrounded by aphorisms psychologically and physically.

[Jack Wilson]

Right. Okay. The next one might be a similar theme. And the chapter title is Good and Evil are the Prejudices of God Seekers, Dissenters and Skeptics. And the one I chose is this very second has vanished forever, lost in the anonymous mass of the irrevocable. It will never return. I suffer from this and I do not. Everything is unique and insignificant.

[James Geary]

Oh, my gosh. Yes. I can't believe this. I'm blanking on. Who was that?

[Jack Wilson]

EM Kioren. Yeah.

[James Geary]

Oh, yeah, of course. Em. Kieran Kioran.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

Oh, gosh, talk about dark, dark musings in aphorisms. So I think he was a Romanian writer and he lived most of his life in Paris. So that chapter is about seekers, dissenters, skeptics, and I think writers who have this kind of. How do I explain it? They have a dark view of human nature and human life. And reading their aphorisms is a little bit like rubbing your hand along sandpaper paper. No, it's. It's a little. It hurts. It hurts a little.

[Paul Kristol]

Yeah.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

But someone like Kieran and I think that's again related to what we were talking about earlier. Aphorisms are, in a way, like vaccines especially these kind of really cynical dark aphorisms. They like all this vanity and like the one you just read, they sort of just like a vaccine, you get a little bit of the disease into your body, and by having that little bit of disease in your body, your body, your body's immune response kicks in and you become more resilient and more resistance against that disease. So whether it's Covid vaccines or, you know, annual flu shots or whatever, that's how we build up our resistance. And I think aphrus like urine, are similar. They inject a little of the dark, the darkest sides of human life and human nature. And though it. It's not pleasant, it stings a bit, it does build our resilience and our resistance to think about those, you know, to confront your own mortality, to confront perhaps a universe that doesn't really care if we exist or not. Yeah. And you then decide, well, I agree with that view, or I don't agree with that view, or even if I agree with that view, I'm going to find meaning in my own life. And I think aphorisms, that's one of the things they provoke. They provoke meaning making in our own minds.

[Jack Wilson]

It's interesting that, the way you describe that, because I also noted down a different one here where it almost seems like it's giving us a little more of a. A step toward that light at the end of the tunnel by showing us someone who is wrestling with that kind of darkness and that kind of outlook. And the aphorism is. I have often been forced to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that there was no place else to go.

[James Geary]

Yeah, that's a saying that's attributed to Lincoln.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah.

[James Geary]

And that's. Yeah, that is another way to express the same thing. And there, I think, Kieran doesn't give us a solution or a direction.

[Jack Wilson]

He.

[James Geary]

And that's very, very consistent with all his books and all his aphorisms. He sits there in the darkness and he abides with it. And in the Lincoln aphorism, it's the same acknowledgment of the unbearable, sometimes the unbearable weight of the world. But Lincoln is finding a direction. And it's a wonderful, beautiful metaphor of forced. My knees as a kind of the juxtaposition. And here's a twist of being forced to your knees as a kind of surrender, but being forced to your knees as a form of prayer as well, which is strength.

[Jack Wilson]

Right.

[James Geary]

Not surrender.

[Jack Wilson]

Right, right. Okay. The last one I chose has a very special position of privilege in your book. An aphorism is the last link in a long chain of thought.

[James Geary]

Yeah. So that's Marie von Ebner Eschenbach, who is a late 19th, early 20th century Austrian countess. And she originally wanted to be a playwright and did not achieve the success she had hoped for as a playwright. In fact, all her plays were panned in a very vicious and misogynistic way by. By contemporary theater critics. And of course, when she was alive, it was not seemly for a woman to be a writer or a playwright or a writer of any kind. And at one point, after she received more bad reviews for one of her plays, her husband went to her and said, you know, Marie, I think you should give up this writing business, because all these bad reviews, they really reflect poorly on me. And. And I think that prompted one of her other great aphorisms. Women have millions of born enemies, all the stupid men. So there's some efforts to write aphorisms about aphorisms. And Marie von Abner Eschenbach is one of them. And that one for me. And it's so. It has a special place because it's the epigraph that begins the book for me that is that aphorism gets to the real heart of. Of how aphorisms work and why, like, if you think about social media today and text messaging and all the short form modes of communication that we have. You know, TikTok videos, super short text messages, super short tweets and and social media posts. Super short. Aphorisms are also short. But aphorisms are the opposite of a hot take, the opposite of a rage post. Those forms of expression prompt kind of knee jerk reactions, but aphorisms prompt long term reflection, like the difference between a rut and a grave. I've literally been thinking about that for decades. And for me, Marie von Ebner Eschenbach's aphorism An aphorism is the last link in a long chain of thought. Perfectly captures the Though the aphorism is brief, the kind of thinking and pondering and musing that it provokes is really literally can last a lifetime.

[Jack Wilson]

And you could probably say that Ambrose Bierce could come along and say, well, actually I think it's the first link in a long chain of thought.

[James Geary]

That's brilliant. I'm sure if he had known Emery from Abner Eschenbach's work, he would have. He would have said that.

[Jack Wilson]

Okay. The book is called the World in a A Brief History of the Aphorism. James Geary, thank you so much for joining me on the history of literature.

[James Geary]

Thank you so much for having me. Foreign

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[Jack Wilson]

And finally today, Paul Crystal was here back in episode 710 for some weird and wonderful stories from ancient Greece. After he and I talked about that. I asked him a special question. Okay. Joining me now is Paul Kristol, the author of more than 180 books, including Weird and Wonderful Stories of Ancient Greece and Rome. Paul, this question comes from a listener who asks, what do you want your last book to be? This will be the last book you will ever read. You can either choose one that exists or describe one that has not yet been written.

[Paul Kristol]

Yeah, interesting question. Of course, no one wants to be presented with the thought that if I

[Jack Wilson]

read this one, yeah,

[Paul Kristol]

In a sense, you approach it with some trepidation. But I initially thought of something a bit pretentious and a bit sort of worthy. And I thought, Albert Camus, A Happy Death, just in keeping with the question. And it sort of answers the question at the same time. But then I sort of, you know, looked at it and sort of read a bit of it again, and I thought, no, it's too obvious. Because, I mean, basically what happens is that the guy's aim in life as a existentialist, and some people call them absurdists, was that you should die happy. Of course we should die happy, but most of us don't for one reason or another. But, you know, war, disease and so on. But, yeah, I mean, the only unfortunate thing about Camus in dying happy is that a. You've got to have money to die happy, usually because poor people probably have more unhappier deaths than wealthy people. But Camus as his hero. So actually murder someone so that he can take their money and then have the money to enable himself to get the time to actually die a happy death. Which, you know, is basically, I think you're losing more in life than you're actually gaining. You've got a murder, some problem. So, anyway, I sort of rejected that in favor of a book by Roger McGough, who is a popular poet in this country, has been famous for many years, and he's sometimes dubbed as the sort of poet laureate of comedy and popular poetry. And I. I chose a poem out of his selected poems, his anthology, and I thought, well, if you read this, the last thing you do is read this. You die with a smile on your face. And it wouldn't just be sort of a ritual sort of brought about by your death. And the poem in itself is sort of redolent of what the question's trying to get at. I think it's called Let Me Die a Young Man's Death, which. It's quite sardonic in a way. But. Yeah. Do I read it now or.

[Jack Wilson]

Sure. Well, it's called Let Me Die a Young Man's Death.

[Paul Kristol]

That's it? Yeah. I mean, I could have chosen any of the hundred or so poems in this anthology, but this struck me as quite. In a sort of existential sort of way.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah. Well, I'm. I'm a little bit worried about having you read it because now that you've announced it could be the last thing you'll ever read. I don't want to. Oh my God.

[Paul Kristol]

I never thought.

[Jack Wilson]

I don't want to make history here where. And we've had some technical problems with our call. If the line suddenly goes silent afterwards, I think I would lose my breakfast.

[Paul Kristol]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm here on my own as well. No one had done for.

[Jack Wilson]

But maybe we should. Maybe we can tempt fate. Because I do kind of want to hear the poem.

[Paul Kristol]

Yeah. Okay. Well, it's on page 42 of his Roger McGough Selected Poems. I'll put the phone down. I think we're on speaker, so you should. You can't hear me, let me know. But I'll put the phone down and open the book. Okay.

[Jack Wilson]

Yep.

[Paul Kristol]

Let me die a young man's death. Not a clean and in between the sheets holy water death. What are famous last words? Peaceful out of breath death. When I'm 73 and in good constant good tumor may I be mown down at dawn by a bright red sports car on my way home from an all night party. Or when I'm 91 with silver hair and sitting in a barber's chair May rival gangsters with ham fisted tommy guns burst in and give me a short back and insides. But when I'm 104, 104 and banned from the cabin which editors knows is a famous pub in Liverpool frequented by the beetles. May my mistress catching me in bed with her daughter and fearing for her son, cut me up into little pieces and throw away every piece per one. Let me die young man's death, not a free from spin thin tiptoe in candle wax and waning death. Not a curtain drawn by angels born. What a nice way to go Death. Lovely red. But that is a.

[Jack Wilson]

That is a good poem. Now, do you think that this would have to be capped off by dying a young man's death? Is that something that we should all be hoping is. Is at the end of our lives here? Or do you think it's enough to read the poem and. And chuckle over it and then have our usual, you know, hooked up to a bunch of machines in the hospital kind of death?

[Paul Kristol]

Ah, yeah, yeah, that's a good. Yeah, it's a good standard. Should have put that in. I mean, I think you probably need to have it read properly, but. Yeah, I mean, I think most people would relate to that. There are other similar poems, of course, that have the same sentiment, but there's one about a woman who wants to be dressed in purple and such like, or spend the last days looking glamorous and ostentatious. So it's a common theme, as you probably know, but it's a good way to go out.

[Jack Wilson]

I think it's a good way to go out, but it's also a good reminder that it's not just at the moment of death, but let me have some moments in old age that are reminiscent of the fun things that I did when I was in my teens and twenties. And let me travel to foreign countries and let me enjoy going down a water slide or skiing down some slopes or riding a roller coaster or things like that. Let me not have all of the pleasures of youth denied to me just because my age is a certain number.

[Paul Kristol]

Yeah. Saves the day.

[Jack Wilson]

Exactly. Okay. Well, Paul Crystol, thank you so much for joining me on the history of literature.

[Paul Kristol]

Yeah, okay.

[Jack Wilson]

Yeah. Okay. That's how you have to sign off when you're busy writing 180 books. Thanks to Paul Kristol for that cameo appearance and of course, to James Geary, the grand maven of aphorism. So much fun talking to people like Paul and James, but the fun doesn't end. We're going to be traveling back to the Regency period to see how the men responded when the women said no and what the men and women novelists of the era made of that. And we have a short story by Guy de Maupassant coming up soon and a new novel by a longtime friend of the show, Laurie Frankel. The novel with a concept that will make your jaw drop and we'll make you nod with appreciation. You'll say, yes.

[James Geary]

Yes.

[Jack Wilson]

What a great idea. And well executed, too. We'll have some Sherlock Holmes soon. Haven't done him in a while. And we'll have some greatest hits, some episodes reclaimed and some just encore performances. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.

[Paul Kristol]

Sam.

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