What's the difference between adage and aphorism?

Adage


Definition:

  • (n.) An old saying, which has obtained credit by long use; a proverb.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) One of the great cautionary adages of our culture is: "Be careful what you wish for; you might just get it."
  • (2) What does the slung-about, bounced-around adage that "Politics is show-business for ugly people" actually mean?
  • (3) Certainly, the galvanising call for submissions brings to mind that inclusive Varsovian adage: “The entire nation builds its capital.” For Warsaw’s reconstruction, though, it was the work of a single artist that provided the crucial blueprint.
  • (4) It reminds me of the old adage that we teach people how to treat us.
  • (5) Depending on your tastes, that verdict might either bring to mind Marx’s adage about history being repeated first as tragedy then farce, or the immortal words of Jay Gatsby: “Can’t repeat the past?
  • (6) The old adage, "You are what you eat," is not always reliable, as demonstrated in this mixed-longitudinal study of men that began in 1969.
  • (7) Working with researchers at the University of Surrey and being exposed to the wealth of evidence out there, it is clear to me that the old adage "rest is best" no longer applies.
  • (8) It has some commentators repeating an old adage about newspapers, repeated by Bill Clinton when he was president: "Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel."
  • (9) You can only beat what’s put in front of you, as the old adage goes … but the Potters’ recent run of fixtures could scarcely have been kinder: Bournemouth are the only side inside the top 10 they have played in over two months and they beat Mark Hughes’s men.
  • (10) At the time I thought it was a clever inversion of an old adage, referring to Labour's 18 years in opposition.
  • (11) As in Aesop's adage, the ego ideal is at the source of the best and the worst of things.
  • (12) The three dimensional display capabilities of the Adage AGT-30 are used to present the reconstructed structures.
  • (13) As the African adage says, “a man must be like a flowering pole, he must grow wherever he is planted”.
  • (14) Diane Abbott is Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington Simon Danczuk Simon Danczuk: 'Voters want a party they can trust on immigration' There's an old adage in politics that if you don't think you can win an argument, be sure to change the subject.
  • (15) Two-and-a-half years on, and regulators have lived up to the adage that those who don't learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.
  • (16) That’s why the government guidelines don’t say, ‘Don’t drink’; they say, ‘OK drink, but only modestly.’ It’s like a little of what doesn’t kill you cures you.” This adage also applies in an unexpected place – to broccoli, the luvvie of the high-street “superfood” detox salad.
  • (17) Don’t sterilise everything that comes into contact with your child’s mouth, within reason.” In fact, the one piece of advice Arrieta offers mothers is to forget the adage “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” “One thing I don’t do any more – and wish others would stop – is carrying a hand sanitiser gel.
  • (18) Caraiva, Bahia Steven Chew, contributing editor Conde Nast Traveller There's an adage with remote Brazilian beaches: first go the hippies, then the yachties, then the French ... Caraiva is still at the happy-hippy stage of discovery and even then only for a brief period in the summer.
  • (19) The adage "do no harm" should be kept in mind in the counseling, diagnosis, and treatment of HIV-infected individuals.
  • (20) Baseball fans are familiar with the old adage “pitching wins championships”.

Aphorism


Definition:

  • (n.) A comprehensive maxim or principle expressed in a few words; a sharply defined sentence relating to abstract truth rather than to practical matters.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) For the man who created the " specialist in failure " aphorism to disparage a fellow manager, it is obvious how much that would hurt.
  • (2) His most celebrated aphorism was his response to a journalist who wondered whether Christian Democrats would ever be weary of wielding power: "Political power wears out only those who haven't got it."
  • (3) She is thinking about a book of aphorisms, for which Spark characters such as Mrs Hawkins and Miss Jean Brodie are famous.
  • (4) His aphorisms include the following: "may your food be your medicine".
  • (5) When we sit down for a more formal interview in his Manhattan hotel room a few hours later, Ross's earlier gregarious anecdotes are replaced by aphorisms that could come straight off one of those inspirational posters you see in recruitment consultant offices.
  • (6) I just thought up a nonsensical Confucian-sounding aphorism and said it in a grossly exaggerated version of my dad's voice.
  • (7) Greg Dyke must put plug in Qatar talk if Fifa revamp is to unite the world | Barney Ronay Read more Like Blatter, Dyke can lapse into mystifyingly abstract aphorisms.
  • (8) One cheering side-effect of economic depression, is that it provides occasion to recall Keynes's sideline in Wildean aphorisms.
  • (9) Vidal's critics disparaged his tendency to formulate an aphorism rather than to argue, finding in his work an underlying note of contempt for those who did not agree with him.
  • (10) It's an aphorism the ex-head of the civil service proved wrong.
  • (11) Much of that is down to Dupuis who, in a genre where bland aphorisms are often the norm, actually has something to say.
  • (12) Twain was always a barometric writer, with a knack for registering contemporary social pressures in sharp-eyed aphorisms that weren't merely quotable, but often well ahead of their time.
  • (13) The old aphorism is still valid: When in doubt, take it out.
  • (14) Which in turn helps partially to explain the significance of the aphorism: 'An Argentine is an Italian who speaks Spanish and thinks he is an Englishman.'
  • (15) Now they are the stalest of cliches, but when, in the first 1998 episode, in the midst of all that big hair and weird brown lipstick, you hear Carrie first describe the allure and disappointment of "toxic bachelors", when Samantha first says frankly that she likes to have sex without emotion, to "fuck like a man", it was bitingly fresh for women to speak these aphorisms out loud, in public, and in fabulous heels.
  • (16) Elizabeth is prone to blurting out aphorisms, such as "it's easier to give a blow job than make coffee" and "you should be just as happy with the breasts you have as you are with the futility of existence".
  • (17) In its submission to the special session, Colombia quotes Albert Einstein’s aphorism that the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”.
  • (18) Aphorisms often appear too trite to tell us anything meaningful, yet this is not the case with the assertion attributed to Mahatma Gandhi that "the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members".
  • (19) The files disclose that Thatcher's first months in power reveal a torrent of pungent political aphorisms that were to sustain her in power for the next 13 years.
  • (20) It was a favourite Reagan aphorism, sometimes half-true, sometimes a disastrous basis for policy in a globally connected, ever more sophisticated world.