He repeated to himself an old French proverb that he had made up that morning. – F. Scott Fitzgerald

There is a homely directness about these rustic apothegms which makes them far more palatable than the strained and sophisticated epigrams of the characters of Oscar Wilde’s plays, who are ever striving strenuously to dazzle us with verbal pyrotechnics. – Brander Matthews, “American Aphorisms,” Harper’s Magazine, November 1915,

Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure. – Agnes Sybil Thorndike (1882–1976)