The Daily Aphorism - a new website from The School of Life

We need good ideas today more than ever, to give us the courage and humour to get through these uncertain times. So today we’ve launched The Daily Aphorism, a new website that distributes a short and pithy piece of wisdom every morning. Sign up now to receive a beautifully typeset aphorism in your inbox every day for a month.

www.thedailyaphorism.com

But what exactly is an aphorism? An ‘itch of wisdom’, ’the world in a phrase’, or for the more prosaically minded, ‘an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and easily memorable form’. Anyone can write one, though it takes some skill to do it well. Famous aphorists have included Blaise Pascal, William Blake, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Winston Churchill, Jenny Holzer and Woody Allen, many of whom are featured on The Daily Aphorism website.

As part of the campaign, we are also inviting you to compose their own contemporary aphorisms. Here is some advice from aphorism expert James Geary about how to compose a winning entry: 

There is good news and bad news. The bad news is: 'How to write an aphorism' is something that can't be taught. The good news is: It is something that can be learned.

There are three basic methods of composition. There is the 'spontaneous combustion' method, in which the aphorism flares out fully formed at unexpected moments, sending the writer scrabbling for napkins, envelopes or any other scrap of paper on which to write it down. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec was a great practitioner of this method: "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."

Then there is the 'deliberate composition' method as practiced by the likes of La Rochefoucauld. He would attend a swanky salon, discuss all manner of subjects, such as love and friendship, then retire for hours to his room where he would produce several sheets of prose, all of which he would eventually distill down to one or two sharp, shining sentences: "In the adversity of even our best friends we always find something not wholly displeasing."

And then there are the 'accidental aphorists,' those writers who never intend to compose aphorisms but just can't help themselves—aphorisms occur naturally within longer stretches of text, such as essays, novels, or poems. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a classic accidental aphorist: "What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered."

So, it's really a matter of finding out which kind of aphorist you are. Then I find it helpful to apply these handy laws—keep it short (after all, only a fool gives a speech in a burning house), definitive (no ifs, ands, or buts), philosophical (it should make you think), and give it a twist. It's also useful to keep in mind what Gabriel Laub said about aphorisms: "Aphorisms are so popular because, among other reasons, they contain half-truths, and that is an unusually high percentage."

Entries should be submitted via The Daily Aphorism website before 31st December. The competition will be judged by James Geary, philosopher Alain de Botton and Director of The School of Life Sophie Howarth. The winning aphorism will be the main feature in The School of Life’s window in the New Year and the winner will also be offered a free place on one of The School of Life’s courses.

The Daily Aphorism has been produced in collaboration with St. Luke’s. The aphorisms have been typeset by Susanna Edwards and Joseph Harries and posters are available from The School of Life's shop.

 

Comments

[Phil Bartlett]

This idea can go for miles. More power to you!

["Fluff" Flanagan]

It'll all come out in the wash.

[Maxine]

You got a lot of parrots squawking on this website!

[Paul Hurt]

Now I see what the School of Life is trying to accomplish here by bringing this aphorism website to fruition: Aphorists are often very strong minded, those who try to bring aphorisms into existence are strong, and with much incentive to be strong they have something unique to contribute here, and to create something new that was not around before in cyberspace: The Daily Aphorism website.

[Drew Byrne]

This website could be the sort of public open forum in the literary world where aphorisms really come to the fore among the common people... It's a pity that one is so limited by "the powers that be" as to how many entries for the "proffered prize" one is allowed personally to put down on it, as, speaking for myself, on this website I could probably write a good book-full of the stuff without thinking too much about it at all.

[Sally Sims.]

Classic idea! Keep them coming.

[Lizzy]

Ah, the art of the Aphorism... at least it's a victimless crime...

[Andrew Badu]

This is a great website - keep the aphorisms coming! We all need a bit of encouragement at times: Do your best. That is all that is required. A small thing it is. Anything else is beyond the pale.

[Dillon]

The demons of mistake are more amusing than the parrots of dejection.

[Graeme Outerbridge]

The School of Life by copying the ideas of the Oxford Muse has given the highest form of flattery.

[Gordon Brown]

Ah, vanity of vanities, all is vanity (plus a bit of the Hokey-Pokey on the side). But the contemplative process of deep relaxation engendered by reading aphorisms from the pages of The Daily Aphorism website, are like a swift, refreshing wind on a stormy day that helps clear the cobwebs from the mind’s eye.

[Drew Byrne]

In my humble opinion, people (or every "fellow aphoristic persons" posting on it) have the given right to post whatever they wish on The School of Life’s Daily Aphorism website, just so long as it sounds (or seems) basically aphoristic in content and form, structure and syntax, and, for a larf, I frequently attempt it myself (as, after all, anyone can write one, though it takes some skill to do it well). However, I think it a pity that, from the start, it was not made a point of posting anything interesting on the website specifically by traceable, known persons (whether "known to the Metropolitan Police," or not, but at least traceable) that, sometime in the future, it could be printed up in a book of amateur "aphorisms" produced by the School of Life’s own press, just for a laugh maybe. That is, after The School of Life going to all the trouble of inviting people to compose and post their own contemporary aphorisms on the website, as part of the campaign to "spread the word" about aphorisms through the Daily Aphorism website. As, after all, I’m sure that sort of book would be a best seller in the school’s London shop, and the profits from its sale (if any, after costs) could go to charity...it’d probably end up outselling the school’s famed series of posters of famous people’s famous aphorisms even, given that anyone with an aphorism printed in it would want to buy one (at a reasonable price)...but there you go.

[Drew Byrne]

A man's time spent contemplating the infinite on The Daily Aphorism's blog brings everything into sharp focus; indeed, he could not be a well-rounded individual without doing so at least once a week.

[Allan Brown]

Despite being invited to by "a very polite machine," I have no inclination to post another comment here...yet.

[Allan Brown]

"Now is the time of our dishcloth tent"...but do we really know what this really means to us once we wash our hands of it?

[Archie Pratt]

I expect that where the utility of the Daily Aphorism is concerned it can be seen as being one more bended bow added to the Colledge of Lifemanship’s pregnant quiver of arrows, but where will it end? Where it began I suspect: not embedded in the gold but at least in transcending it’s own philosophical anomaly.

[Allan Brown]

An aphorism a day keeps the philosophers questioning their right to diagnose the ills of the human race, and to get it wrong anyway.

[Fritz Lagusad]

The object of the joke knows when to stop when he asks himself whether he is happy or not.

[Fritz Lagusad]

When the dog barks at the owner, it means it wants to exchange places.

[Drew Byrne]

The best laughs last longest, but does the object of the joke know when to stop?