Aphorism
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- "The book which most deserved to be banned would be a catalogue of banned books." --Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms (G 37 in R. J. Hollingdale's translation and numeration)
An aphorism (literally distinction or definition, from Greek αφοριζειν "to define") expresses a general truth in a pithy sentence.
Care should be taken not to confound aphorisms with axioms. Aphorisms come into being as the result of experience. This is also often the case with axioms (see axiomatization; Euclidean geometry), but due to their apparent certainty, axioms are then regarded as assertions not requiring proof, and used as the starting point for further deductive reasoning. Aphorisms have been especially used in dealing with subjects such as art, agriculture, medicine, jurisprudence and politics, to which little methodical or scientific treatment was applied at the time.
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