When skunks duel, wind direction is everything.

April 16, 2018 4:22 AM

Entitled Opinions is back, with Dr Andrew Hui, an Assistant Professor of Literature at Yale-NUS College. His second book, A Theory of the Aphorism (forthcoming, Princeton University Press, Fall 2018), is "a short book on the shortest genre of all: the short saying. It studies the ubiquitous yet under-explored form of the aphorism, one that pervades multiple traditions, from Heraclitus to Confucius, Buddhist sutras to Pascal, Nietzsche to Twitter."
posted by spaceburglar (22 comments total)

A witty saying proves nothing.
posted by Reverend John at 5:13 AM on April 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Brevity is wit.
posted by nushustu at 6:05 AM on April 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

I just want to throw in a word my guy la Rochefoucauld here.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:18 AM on April 16, 2018

The frenemy of my frenemy is my frenemy.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:32 AM on April 16, 2018 [5 favorites]

Fish and comic conventions smell after three days.
posted by little onion at 7:01 AM on April 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sometimes I worry that I don't really have imposter syndrome.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:09 AM on April 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

A deleted tweet in time saves nine.
posted by little onion at 7:09 AM on April 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Peace within begins with a tweet left unsent.
posted by ocschwar at 7:13 AM on April 16, 2018

There but for the grace of God post I.
posted by little onion at 7:14 AM on April 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

I don't burn bridges, but I do consider rigging them with demolitions charges to be a valid tactic in a fighting retreat.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:14 AM on April 16, 2018

Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise.
posted by spaceburglar at 7:16 AM on April 16, 2018

My body is not a wonderland. My body is a dilapidated carnival somewhere in rural Tennessee.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:40 AM on April 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

If everything is hovering menacingly, then nothing is hovering menacingly.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:56 AM on April 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

There are none so blind as those who cannot see.
posted by Naberius at 8:04 AM on April 16, 2018

"Those guys were like that when I got here."

- Vlad Țepeș
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:18 AM on April 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Brevity is wit.

Huh. I thought levity was the soul of wit.
posted by Quackles at 1:14 PM on April 16, 2018

When skunks duel, wind direction is everything.

Is this the new politics thread
posted by saturday_morning at 1:45 PM on April 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hurm.
posted by vrakatar at 4:36 PM on April 16, 2018

A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 5:47 PM on April 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

I just want to throw in a word my guy la Rochefoucauld here.

Indeed.

Sometimes I wish that Why must it be that our memory is capable of retaining even the minutest details of what has happened to us, but is not capable of remembering how many times we have retold them to one and the same person? could be tattooed on my corneas.
posted by y2karl at 5:57 AM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]

Also Epicharmus of Syracuse:

Mortals should think mortal thoughts and not immortal ones.
posted by y2karl at 6:07 AM on April 18, 2018

There is one that always seems to grow more true with every passing day:

"No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up." — Lily Tomlin
posted by homunculus at 10:13 AM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]