The World in a Phrase : A Brief History of the Aphorism, Second Edition

Celebrating the short, witty, philosophical phrases known as aphorisms, this delightful history is an entertaining tour through the wisest and wittiest sayings in the world. Aphorisms are literature’s hand luggage. Light and compact, they contain everything you need to get through a rough day at the office or a dark night of the soul.Aphorisms, the oldest written art form on the planet, have been going viral for thousands of years, delivering the short, sharp shock of old forgotten truths.Today, visual artists are mixing pithy language with compelling imagery and using social media to take the form into the future.In a world of disinformation and deepfakes, aphorisms point to the power of fresh debate over tired dogma and inconvenient truths over comfortable lies. Starting in ancient China and ending with contemporary meme-makers and street artists, The World in A Phrase tells the story of the aphorism through brief biographies of some of its greatest practitioners: sages like Lao-tzu