Norman Douglas Quotes

Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations.

Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

Proverbs may not improperly be called the philosophy of the common people.

The wise make proverbs, and fools repeat them.

A proverb is one man’s wit and all men’s wisdom.

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

Witty inspirations are the proverbs of the educated.

Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are preserved by quotations.

It's tough - and I'm not the first person to say this - but cliches exist because they actually happen in real life.

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answer.

Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit place in conversation.

I believe aphorisms are best when first read in the wild, free from the confines of any categories.

Proverbs are mental gems gathered in the diamond fields of the mind.

I collect axioms, paradoxes, maxims, teaching stories, proverbs, and aphorisms of all sorts, because I love to see complex ideas distilled into a few words.

I'd lived by quotations, practically all my life.

I prefer sayings over jokes.

Listen carefully to what country people call mother wit. In those homely sayings are couched the collective wisdom of generations.

Proverbs contradict each other. That is the wisdom of a nation.

Proverbs were anterior to boots, and formed the wisdom of the vulgar, and in the earliest ages were the unwritten laws of morality.

Apothegms form a short cut to much knowledge.

Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction.

cliches are truisms and all truisms are true

I got so tired of hearing those proverbs when I was a child. Now I use them all the time. Sometimes they are the best way to say what needs to be said. I teach them to my students. I have a collection of proverbs for class discussion and writing assignments.