They have written volumes out of which a couplet of verse, a period in prose, may cling to the rock of ages, as a shell that survives a deluge. – Edward Bulwer Lytton

There are plenty of good maxims in the world; we fail only in applying them. – Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), translated from the French by an unnamed transl

Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk… – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, c.1598

People who rarely read long books, or even short stories, still appreciate the greatest examples of the shortest literary genres. I have long been fascinated by these short genres. They seem to lie just where my heart is, somewhere between literature and philosophy. – Gary Saul Morson, The Long and Short of It: From Aphorism to Novel, 2012