Modern Thought Proverbs, Aphorisms and Epigrams

Achieve great things — being content.

Lives slow, die fast, leave a fully used corpse.

Knock it down; drag it out; don’t forget to stomp on it. 

A saying is a slaying; it massacres untruth.

All snide remarks originate in serious forethoughts.

Some charm with leg and arm, and some with loyalty.

The wise crack; fools remain grimly reformative.

Wonder through windows; will yourself through walls.

Agency eats fate for breakfast, chance for lunch and apathy for dinner. 

It takes guts to shut up.

All things talk; very few things listen.

Sorry– it’s a form of glory. 

Saying sorry is easy, being sorry more like queazy. 

To annihilate the efficacy of apology, persistently offend. 

A feeling sends us reeling; a thought catches us.  

Strive not for a great nation; labor mightily for a great world. 

All speakers elaborate; the really good ones lie shamelessly.

Embellish all your stories; this will engender widespread approval and universal credibility.

The mind and heart must both collude to have a shot at quietude.

I am only as safe to you as I am to me. 

Telling the truth will earn you public enemies; lying will earn you private ones.

Fame is height, for the short. 

Much of what we don’t know about others we don’t want to.

We relieve one end in private, spew from the other in public.

Eat sand; blast injustice.

Be present; gifts surround you.

Conversations are gifts, points of view, largesse.

To book a colonoscopy is brave; to actually go to one shows a stunning lack of self-regard.

Know before you go. 

To live fully, quit thinking overly.

The most addictive sedative is simply the repetitive.

Knock and you will be denied; pull out your wallet, and it will be given unto you. 

Every family silence tilts towards a family tragedy. 

The theft of depth leaves us bereft. 

Urgency loves an emergency. 

Wisdom lies beyond policy.

Our soul is always trying to tell us what we need.

Everything carries a song; not everything sings it.

A bed is safe, but a world is an adventure.

To suffer is to discover ourselves.

Think fast; choose slow. 

As long as one person is empty none of us are full. 

The passion to be famous has inspired many people to become amazingly adequate.

To guarantee success, aim low.

Dying is eventually a healthy choice.

Originality is overrated; good copying counts too.

Every large organization has the same waste disposal problem: where to dump the bodies.

Aging was designed to prevent the popularization of nudity.

If you give me a judge, I owe you a ship.

Facelifts, breast implants and wigs don’t ward off death; they just make the corpses weirder.

To buy a BMW, frequent the dentist.

If you are pursued by a dinosaur, change organizations.

Fame is exhausting; obscurity is completely so.

The differences between men and women are mostly similar.

Whenever someone starts loving me to death, I begin to long to be alone.

Clothes make the man; impoverished children and women make the clothes.

Eat, drink and be wary for tomorrow you may live.

Be a nonconformist — let other people tell you what to do.

If you can’t afford the zoo, watch congress on TV.

Wit is ephemeral; fortunately so is dullness.

A warranty is our assurance that our purchases were designed to break.

To accept an invitation to a wedding is serious business; it is to agree to shorten your life by one day.

It is an amazing coincidence: Believers in divine predestination are the very same people as those chosen for eternal salvation.

What you must do to win an election generally disqualifies you from being elected.

Maturity is when your weight is at its maximum and you know the paremiological minimum.

God made dice, then he made men and women.

Sarcasm is making clear what we don’t believe to people who don’t believe us.

A child without a TV is like a horse without a tennis racket.

Luck invented awards; effort made them seem legitimate.

Most of us know we have a soul, we just can’t remember where we left it.

Mark Twain would be pleasantly surprised; naked people have increased in influence.

Sex sells, but not like junk.

Those who say there are no misakes have never been on the wrong end of one.

When everyone but you is nuts, you can be sure it’s you that’s putz.

I can only be as kind to you as I am to me.

Dream in color; plan in black and white.

Aim for perfect, then adjust.

Kissing is like archery — but more fun.

A church is a place where people unworthy of heaven love people who feel unworthy of earth.

The only thing that should rule a family is forgiveness.

The only sin is to stop applauding.

Love untold is fool’s gold.

Every compliment is a face lift.

The value of modern education is that it affords the opportunity to master the fine art of procrastination.

Personality is the tuxedo of the soul.

Wise by eyes; fools by rules.

What we can’t fix, we can love.

Friends may come and go, but children come and stay.

It is a sin to be too patient.

Wisdom lies in how each of us handles our own foolishness.

Couples must stay together to have any chance of driving the children away.

I make it my rule to never be more famous to others than I am to myself.

Experience has a lesson for those who avoid it.

You can always identify the newborn; she is the youngest person in the room in charge.

The most effective cure for adulthood is childhood.

When you fall off the wagon, somebody else gets run over.

A child without a TV is like a horse without a tennis racket.

A child a day keeps leisure at bay.

Rejoice in small beginnings; the first two-ton pumpkin will begin with a seed.

Waiting for the meal after the wedding is like waiting for the second coming; you know it will come but not the hour or the day.

Greatness lies in going home with no medals and living like an Olympic champion.

To compare a campaign promise to a soap bubble is to gravely insult soap.

Murder solves problems while creating other various and sundry nuisances.

Every organization has the same problem: where to dump the bodies.

Plenty is a ready recipe for mediocrity.

We have zoos to remind children that they are small, curious and delicious.

When salt first kissed sugar the tongue swooned.

War begins and ends with want.

To misstep is better than to nonstep.

Facelifts, breast implants and wigs don’t ward off death, they just make the corpses weirder.

Opposites attack.

Evil exist in the next time I look away from injustice and do nothing.

I make it a rule never to let my happiness interfere with a good sulk.

All food should be honored with silence – for chewing.

We should vow to all the precious people we love, “I’ll tolerate you forever!”

If you don’t love me, there is something wrong with you.

If life weren’t so scary, death wouldn’t make us so afraid.

There are no little people, only small-minded views of people of different sizes and shapes.

It takes more courage to end a thing than to begin it.

The wilderness is a cafe, and the goal is to stay off the plate.

The similarity between cats and humans is that both are born blind; the difference is that cats fairly quickly gain their sight.

Not deciding decides.

Compliment more; criticisms are winning.

The silent treatment requires the talking cure.

The most upsetting conversations are silent, vicious and take place between two ears.

Great conversation requires two or more people, unless you are alone.

If you aren’t happy with who you are, run for public office.

The summum bonum lies deep within our happiness with each other — and breakfast.

Every compliment is a facelift.

Time is an illusion, but lunch is a reality.

What you must do to win an election generally disqualifies you from being elected.

A passion to be famous has inspired many people to become adequate at what they do.

To err is human, to forgive, humane.

A good proverb is like a good foot-bridge troll, short-statured, sturdy and armed with a vicious bite.

A properly placed proverb is like a perfectly executed murder — untruth taken out with one shot.

Proverbs galore are the ultimate bore.