That evening I’d come down to change the furnace filter and found the furnace room dark. In fact, the light socket was empty. Hmm. How’d that happen?
No worry. I keep light bulbs of all description in a large plastic container in the hallway closet nearby. It’s on a high shelf, so I had to pull it down and place it on the guest bed so I could look through it.
Easy enough. But as soon as I put the box on the bed, I was distracted by the two bookshelves a mere three steps away. What’s the use of having books if you don’t look through them now and then?
After a quick inspection, I found at the far end of the second shelf a book a didn’t recognize. The Viking Book of Aphorisms. It was published in 1962 and marked down to $6.95 by Barnes and Noble. The pages looked untouched. Obviously. Who ever gets around to looking at more than 3000 aphorisms?
I glanced at the first section and decided to take the book upstairs with me after I replaced the light bulb.
We don’t talk about aphorisms much anymore. So, I looked online for a definition. An aphorism is not just a famous quotation. It should also be concise, pithy, memorable, and wise/witty, as well as expressing a universal truth.
The next morning, I started with the first section: THE HUMAN CREATURE. Here are some examples:
No one hates his body. –Saint Augustine
Imprisoned in every fat man, a thin one is wildly signaling to be let out. –Connelly
To live is like to love—all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct is for it. –Samuel Butler
There is no freedom for the weak –Meredith
A man’s worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes. –T.H. Huxley
I noticed that many of the aphorisms had a negative view of the “human animal”. The worst, though, were from the Russians.
Here’s Chekov: In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.
And here’s Dostoevsky: Shower upon him every blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes, and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then, out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes, and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the utmost economic absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element.
I skimmed through a few more sections and marked some of the best aphorisms. Then, with more than 2900 to go, I closed the book and put it back downstairs. Maybe in a couple of years I’ll take it out again.
P.S. Happy May.
I’m chuckling away at how you came to find the book – that’s a brilliant tale 🙂
No wonder you put it back after reading the Chekov and Dostoyevsky. I cannot believe how much Russian literature I read as a teenager in school. Or maybe that was the best time to read it? But as you say in one of your responses, no wonder the Russian ones are so bleak when you consider their history.
Maybe someday I’ll go back and thumb through the book again. Start in the middle. I don’t think the first chapter was the best.
Haha. I love how you took us down to your furnace, noticed the light bulb out, and then stopped at your old bookshelf with older books. Very fun. I like aphorisms, but light and happy ones. These are pretty bleak. 🙂
Yeah. I should have started with some of the other sections. This first one was, as you said, pretty bleak.
I love aphorisms . . . in small bites. Trying to swallow an entire book of aphorisms in one gulp would give me indigestion! 😀
True. I wonder why I bought this book with so many aphorisms. Maybe I had specific chapter in mind.
St. Augustine was clearly a white man living before 1) social media and, 2) advertising became making billions off of telling women they have no value if they weren’t thin and pretty.
Times have changed. Sob.
Unfortunately that comment by Dostoevsky is true. Sigh!
Russians may have good reason to look on the dark side.
How interesting that you discovered that book on your shelf. I probably would have it on my shelf too, had I come across it. The funniest aphorism is: “Imprisoned in every fat man, a thin one is wildly signaling to be let out.” –Connelly 😊
It’s funny that I found that one right after the more positive comment of Saint Augustine.