Best Epigrams Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 4

“An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting.”

Source: Poetical works

“An epigram is only a wisecrack that's played at Carnegie Hall.”

Wise Halls Epigrams Carnegie Carnegie Hall

“To say that war is madness is like saying that sex is madness: true enough, from the standpoint of a stateless eunuch, but merely a provocative epigram for those who must make their arrangements in the world as given.”

World War Enough Funny Given Sex Madness Arrangements Standpoint Provocative Epigrams Eunuchs

Author:John Updike

“The object of a comedy is not to correct morals or ridicule the vices of society; no, a comedy should depict the discrepancies between life and purpose, should be the fruit of bitter indignation aroused by the degradation of human dignity, should be sarcasm, and not an epigram, convulsive laughter and not an amused grin, should be written with bile and not diluted salt, in a word, it should embrace life in its highest significance.”

“No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as 'what a man does with his solitude.'”

Men Doe Christian Accepting Solitude Historian Epigrams

Book:The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis

Source: The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C. S. Lewis

“Audiences are always better pleased with a smart retort, some joke or epigram, than with any amount of reasoning.”

Audience Amount Smart Jokes Reasoning Epigrams Retorts

Book:The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography

Source: The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography

“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.”

Play Character Strive Sophisticated Oscars Epigrams Dazzle Homely Wilde Rustic Pyrotechnics

Author:Brander Matthews

“Many pundits today are in the habit of misquoting Santayana's epigram, Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Maybe some people have come to grief this way, but they are probably fewer than those who have fallen into the opposite error. One is apt to perish in politics from too much memory, Tocqueville wrote somewhere, with equal truth and greater insight.”

People Way Today Past Remember Memories Grief Greater Too Much Habit Equal Opposites Errors Insight Fallen Repeats Fewer Epigrams Pundits Remembering The Past Misquoting

Author:David Hackett Fischer

“An epigram is a half-truth so stated as to irritate the person who believes the other half.”

Believe Persons Half Other Half Epigrams Half Truth

Author:Shailer Mathews

“You complain, friend Swift, of the length of my epigrams, but you yourself write nothing. Yours are shorter.”

Writing Friendship Complaining Length Epigrams

Author:Martial

“EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom.”

Sometimes Wisdom Prose Verses Epigrams

Book:The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Large Bold Edition

Source: The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Large Bold Edition

“I am mistaken if a single epigram included fails to preserve at least some faint thrill of the emotion through which it had to pass before the Muse's lips let it fall, with however exquisite deliberation.”

Ifs Fall Emotion Failing Lips Preserves Muse Mistaken Thrill Exquisite Epigrams Deliberation

Author:Arthur Quiller-Couch

“PLATITUDE, n. The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. A desiccated epigram.”

Truth Literature Sea Special Elements Glory Fundamentals Fishes Mortals Smoke Shore Epigrams Departed Jelly Platitudes Withering Popular Literature

Book:The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World

Source: The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World

“If, with the literate, I am Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it.”

Ifs Trying Said Assuming Credit Assumption Oscars Epigrams

Author:Dorothy Parker

“Hold infinity in the palm of your hand.”

“To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower.”

“If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”

“All literature is an effort at the formal character of the epigram.”

Character Literature Effort Formal Epigrams

Author:Delmore Schwartz

“Take my advice, dear reader, don’t talk epigrams even if you have the gift. I know, to those have, the temptation is almost irresistible. But resist it. Epigram and truth are rarely commensurate. Truth has to be somewhat chiselled, as it were, before it will quite fit into an epigram.”

Ifs Knows Advice Reader Fit Dear Temptation Irresistible Epigrams

Author:Joseph P. Farrell

“The wise men of old have sent most of their morality down the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram; and the proverbs of nations, which embody the commonsense of nations, have the brisk concussion of the most sparkling wit.”

Men Light Nations Wise Morality Wit Streams Quotations Epigrams Sparkling Concussions

Book:Literature and life, lects

Source: Literature and life, lects

“An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly.”

Reason Light Shining Regions Flash Quotations Epigrams

Book:Literature and life, lects

Source: Literature and life, lects

“Rather than waste precious time arguing, I went up and started serving my "sentence" without delay. It was usually about an hour for epigrams; somewhat longer for a paradox.”

Hours Waste Sentences Arguing Punishment Paradox Serving Delay Epigrams Precious Time

Author:Peter De Vries

“Tis easy to write epigrams nicely, but to write a book is hard.”

Writing Book Hard Easy Epigrams

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Martial (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Martial (Illustrated)

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