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Aphorism
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 maxim, legal or maxim (philosophy), philosophical), principle, proverb, and saying; although some of these concepts could be construed as types of aphorism. Often aphorisms are distinguished from other short sayings by the need for interpretation to make sense of them. In ''A Theory of the Aphorism'', Andrew Hui defined an aphorism as "a short saying that requires interpretation". A famous example is: History The word was first used in the ''Aphorisms'' of Hippocrates, a long series of propositions concerning the symptoms and diagnosis of disease and the art of healing and medicine. The often-c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis
is a Latin translation of an aphorism coming originally from Greek. It roughly translates to "skillfulness takes time and life is short". The aphorism quotes the first two lines of the Aphorisms by the ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ... physician Hippocrates: "". The familiar Latin translation reverses the order of the original lines, but can express the same principle. Translations The original text, a standard Latin translation, and an English translation from the Greek follow. Interpretation Despite the common usage of the Latin version, ''Ars longa, vita brevis'', the usage caveat is about the Greek original that contains the word tékhnē (''technique'' and ''craft'') that is translated as the Latin ''ars'' (art) as in the usage '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saying
A saying is any concise expression that is especially memorable because of its meaning or style. A saying often shows a wisdom or cultural standard, having different meanings than just the words themselves. Sayings are categorized as follows: * Aphorism: a general, observational truth; "a pithy expression of wisdom or truth". ** Proverb, adage or saw: a widely known or popular aphorism that has gained credibility by long use or tradition. ** Apothegm/Apophthegm: "an edgy, more cynical aphorism; such as, 'Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.'" * Axiom: a proposition that commends itself to general acceptance; a well-established or universally conceded principle; a maxim, rule, or law.''Oxford English Dictionary'' Online, accessed 2012-04-28 * Cliché or bromide: an unoriginal and overused saying. ** Platitude: a cliché that is unsuccessfully presented as though it were meaningful, original, or effective. * Epigram: a cle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wisdom Literature
Wisdom literature is a genre of literature common in the ancient Near East. It consists of statements by sages and the wise that offer teachings about divinity and virtue. Although this genre uses techniques of traditional oral storytelling, it was disseminated in written form. The earliest known wisdom literature dates back to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, originating from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. These regions continued to produce wisdom literature over the subsequent two and a half millennia. Wisdom literature from Jewish, Greek, Chinese, and Indian cultures started appearing around the middle of the 1st millennium BC. In the 1st millennium AD, Egyptian-Greek wisdom literature emerged, some elements of which were later incorporated into Islamic thought. Much of wisdom literature can be broadly categorized into two types – conservative "positive wisdom" and critical "negative wisdom" or "vanity literature": * Conservative Positive Wisdom – Pragmatic, r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heraclitus
Heraclitus (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Achaemenid Empire, Persian Empire. He exerts a wide influence on Western philosophy, both Ancient philosophy, ancient and Modern philosophy, modern, through the works of such authors as Plato, Aristotle, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger, Heidegger. Little is known of Heraclitus's life. He wrote a single work, only Literary fragment, fragments of which have survived. Even in ancient times, his Paradox#In philosophy, paradoxical philosophy, appreciation for Word play, wordplay, and cryptic, oracular epigrams earned him the epithets "the dark" and "the obscure". He was considered arrogant and depressed, a Misanthropy, misanthrope who was subject to melancholia. Consequently, he became known as "the weeping philosopher" in contrast to the ancient ancient atomism, atom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legal Maxim
A legal maxim is an established principle or proposition of law, and a species of aphorism and general maxim (philosophy), maxim. The word is apparently a variant of the Latin , 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 and 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 England, 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 corre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word derives from the Greek (, "inscription", from [], "to write on, to inscribe"). This literary device has been practiced for over two millennia. The presence of wit or sarcasm tends to distinguish non-poetic epigrams from aphorisms and adages, which typically do not show those qualities. Ancient Greek The Greek tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuariesincluding statues of athletesand on funerary monuments, for example "Go tell it to the Spartans, passersby...". These original epigrams did the same job as a short prose text might have done, but in verse. Epigram became a literary genre in the Hellenistic period, probably developing out of scholarly collections of inscriptional epigrams. Though modern epigrams are usually thought of as very short, Greek literary epigram was not always as short as later examples, and the divide between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Truth
Truth or verity is the Property (philosophy), property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth, 2005 In everyday language, it is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences. True statements are usually held to be the opposite of false statement, false statements. The concept of truth is discussed and debated in various contexts, including philosophy, art, theology, law, and science. Most human activities depend upon the concept, where its nature as a concept is assumed rather than being a subject of discussion, including journalism and everyday life. Some philosophers view the concept of truth as basic, and unable to be explained in any terms that are more easily understood than the concept of truth itself. Most commonly, truth is viewed as the correspondence of language or thought to a mind-independent world. This is called the correspon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Axiom
An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or fit' or 'that which commends itself as evident'. The precise definition varies across fields of study. In classic philosophy, an axiom is a statement that is so evident or well-established, that it is accepted without controversy or question. In modern logic, an axiom is a premise or starting point for reasoning. In mathematics, an ''axiom'' may be a " logical axiom" or a " non-logical axiom". Logical axioms are taken to be true within the system of logic they define and are often shown in symbolic form (e.g., (''A'' and ''B'') implies ''A''), while non-logical axioms are substantive assertions about the elements of the domain of a specific mathematical theory, for example ''a'' + 0 = ''a'' in integer arithmetic. N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eloquence
Eloquence (from French language, French ''eloquence'' from Latin ''eloquentia'') is the quality of speech or writing that is marked by fluency, elegancy, and persuasiveness. It is also defined as one of the aims of formal oratory and, in this context, refers to the artistic expression of the speech as opposed to its argumentation. Eloquence is both a natural talent and improved by knowledge of language, study of a specific subject to be addressed, philosophy, rationale and ability to form a persuasive set of tenets within a presentation. "True eloquence," Oliver Goldsmith says, "Does not consist ... in saying great things in a sublime (philosophy), sublime style, but in a simple style; for there is, properly speaking, no such thing as a sublime style, the sublimity lies only in the things; and when they are not so, the language may be turgid, affected, metaphorical, but not affecting." Eloquence in antiquity The word eloquence itself derives from the Latin roots: ''ē'' (a s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norm (social)
A social norm is a shared standard of acceptance, acceptable behavior by a group. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into wikt:rule, rules and laws. Social normative influences or social norms, are deemed to be powerful drivers of human behavioural changes and well organized and incorporated by major theories which explain human behaviour. Institutions are composed of multiple norms. Norms are shared social beliefs about behavior; thus, they are distinct from "ideas", "attitudes", and "values", which can be held privately, and which do not necessarily concern behavior. Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances. Scholars distinguish between regulative norms (which constrain behavior), constitutive norms (which shape interests), and prescriptive norms (which prescribe what actors ''ought'' to do). The effects of norms can be determined by a logic of appropriateness ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agriculture
Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in the cities. While humans started gathering grains at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers only began planting them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. In the 20th century, industrial agriculture based on large-scale monocultures came to dominate agricultural output. , small farms produce about one-third of the world's food, but large farms are prevalent. The largest 1% of farms in the world are greater than and operate more than 70% of the world's farmland. Nearly 40% of agricultural land is found on farms larger than . However, five of every six farm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
