What is an aphorism, really?

An aphorism is a concise, authored statement that tries to compress a universal truth into a sentence you can carry.

That sounds simple but it's not. Most short lines that move you aren't aphorisms at all. They're proverbs (anonymous, folk-wise), or adages (proverbs that earned their stripes through age), or maxims (rules for how to behave), or epigrams (lines that earn their power from a clever turn), or affirmations (lines you say to yourself on purpose), or one-liners (lines that exist for the joke).

The pleasure of these forms is that each is doing something specific. An aphorism wants you to recognize a truth. A maxim wants you to change a behavior. A koan wants you to give up on logic. A blessing wants you to receive something. A motto wants you to belong.

We organized QuipCast around these distinctions because lumping them all together as "quotes" misses the point. The line you need at 7am when you're tying your running shoes is not the line you need at 10pm when you're settling into bed. The line you want from Marcus Aurelius is doing different work than the line you want from your father.

We currently recognize over 40 forms. The full taxonomy is here. The wizard lets you turn each up, down, or off. If you only want maxims and koans, you only get maxims and koans.

The whole project is built on a small bet: that we forget too much of what we already know, and that a quiet frame on the wall, refreshing throughout the day, is a way back to it.