An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: aphorismos, denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tradition from generation to generation.
The concept is generally distinct from those of an adage, brocard, chiasmus, epigram, maxim (legal or philosophical), principle, proverb, and saying; although some of these concepts could be construed as types of aphorism.
Cleanliness is both the state of being clean and free from germs, dirt, trash, or waste, and the habit of achieving and maintaining that state. Cleanliness is often achieved through cleaning. In most cultures, cleanliness is considered a good quality, as indicated by the aphorism: "Cleanliness is next to Godliness", and may be regarded as contributing to other ideals such as health and beauty.
The concept of cleanliness emphasizes an ongoing procedure or set of habits for the purpose of maintenance and prevention. In this it differs from purity, which is a physical, moral, or ritual state of freedom from pollutants. Whereas purity is usually a quality of an individual or substance, cleanliness has a social dimension. "Cleanliness", observed Jacob Burckhardt, "is indispensable to our modern notion of social perfection". A household or workplace may be said to exhibit cleanliness, but ordinarily not purity. Cleanliness is also a characteristic of people who maintain cleanness or prevent dirtying.
A moral (from Latin morālis) is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A moral is a lesson in a story or real life.
The formula panta rhei (Ancient Greek: πάντα ῥεῖ, meaning "everything flows") is an aphorism which describes Heraclitus' doctrine. Plato attributes this teaching to Heraclitus in his dialogue Cratylus, but the formula first appears in the work of the late antique Neoplatonist Simplicius. This formulaic summary of Heraclitus' thought was already in use in Augustan times. Its Latin translation (cuncta fluunt) can be found in the 15th book of Metamorphoses in the "Speech of Pythagoras", in which Ovid sets out the natural philosophical foundation of his Metamorphoses.
Twitterature (a portmanteau of Twitter and literature) is a literary use of the microblogging service of Twitter. It includes various genres, including aphorisms, poetry, and fiction (or some combination thereof) written by individuals or collaboratively. The 280-character maximum imposed by the medium, upgraded from 140 characters in late 2017, provides a creative challenge.
A legal maxim is an established principle or proposition of law, and a species of aphorism and general maxim. The word is apparently a variant of the Latin maxima, but this latter word is not found in extant texts of Roman law with any denotation exactly analogous to that of a legal maxim in the Medieval or modern definition, but the treatises of many of the Roman jurists on regular definitiones and sententiae iuris are to some degree collections of maxims. Most of the Latin maxims originate from the Medieval era in European states that used Latin as their legal language.
The attitude of early English commentators towards the maximal of the law was one of unmingled adulation. In Thomas Hobbes, Doctor and Student (p. 26), they are described as of the same strength and effect in the law as statutes. Francis Bacon observed in the preface to his collection of maxims: The use of maxims will be "in deciding doubt and helping soundness of judgment, but, further, in gracing argument, in correcting unprofitable subtlety, and reducing the same to a more sound and substantial sense of law, in reclaiming vulgar errors, and, generally, in the amendment in some measure of the very nature and complexion of the whole law".
"Might makes right" or "might is right" is an aphorism that asserts that having superior strength or power gives one the ability to control society and enforce one's own agenda, beliefs, concepts of justice, and so on. Montague defined kratocracy or kraterocracy (from the Ancient Greek: κράτος, romanized: krátos, lit. 'might; strength') as a government by those strong enough to seize control through violence or deceit.
"Might makes right" has been described as the credo of totalitarian regimes. The sociologist Max Weber analyzed the relations between a state's power and its moral authority in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Realist scholars of international politics use the phrase to describe the "state of nature" in which power determines the relations among sovereign states.
Gnomic poetry consists of meaningful sayings put into verse to aid the memory. They were known by the Greeks as gnomes (cf. the Greek adjective γνωμικός (gnomikos) "appertaining to an opinion or aphorism"). A gnome was defined by the Elizabethan critic Henry Peacham as "a saying pertaining to the manners and common practices of men, which declareth, with an apt brevity, what in this our life ought to be done, or not done".
It belongs to the broad family of wisdom literature, which expresses general truths about the world. Topics range over the divine and secular, from moral aphorisms to hierarchical social relationships.
Sutra (Sanskrit: सूत्र, romanized: sūtra, lit. 'formula') in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a condensed manual or text. Sutras are a genre of ancient and medieval Indian texts found in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
In Hinduism, sutras are a distinct type of literary composition, a compilation of short aphoristic statements. Each sutra is any short rule, like a theorem distilled into few words or syllables, around which teachings of ritual, philosophy, grammar, or any field of knowledge can be woven. The oldest sutras of Hinduism are found in the Brahmana and Aranyaka layers of the Vedas. Every school of Hindu philosophy, Vedic guides for rites of passage, various fields of arts, law, and social ethics developed respective sutras, which help teach and transmit ideas from one generation to the next.