What's the difference between aphorism and principle?

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.

Principle


Definition:

  • (n.) Beginning; commencement.
  • (n.) A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.
  • (n.) An original faculty or endowment.
  • (n.) A fundamental truth; a comprehensive law or doctrine, from which others are derived, or on which others are founded; a general truth; an elementary proposition; a maxim; an axiom; a postulate.
  • (n.) A settled rule of action; a governing law of conduct; an opinion or belief which exercises a directing influence on the life and behavior; a rule (usually, a right rule) of conduct consistently directing one's actions; as, a person of no principle.
  • (n.) Any original inherent constituent which characterizes a substance, or gives it its essential properties, and which can usually be separated by analysis; -- applied especially to drugs, plant extracts, etc.
  • (v. t.) To equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet, or rule of conduct, good or ill.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Stress is laid on certain principles of diagnostic research in the event of extra-suprarenal pheochromocytomas.
  • (2) However, as the same task confronts the Lib Dems, do we not now have a priceless opportunity to bring the two parties together to undertake a fundamental rethink of the way social democratic principles and policies can be made relevant to modern society.
  • (3) To a supporter at the last election like me – someone who spoke alongside Nick Clegg at the curtain-raiser event for the party conference during the height of Labour's onslaught on civil liberties, and was assured privately by two leaders that the party was onside about civil liberties – this breach of trust and denial of principle is astonishing.
  • (4) The White House denied there had been an agreement, but said it was open in principle to such negotations.
  • (5) Using the MTT assay and analyzing the data using the median-effect principle, we showed that synergistic cytotoxic interactions exist between CDDP and VM in their liposomal form.
  • (6) The heretofore "permanently and totally disabled versus able-bodied" principle in welfare reforms is being abbandoned.
  • (7) The binding follows the principle of isotope dilution in the physiologic range of vitamin B12 present in human serum.
  • (8) The principle of the liquid and solid two-phase radioimmunoassay and its application to measuring the concentrations of triiodothyronine and thyroxine of human serum in a single sample at the same time are described in this paper.
  • (9) Spectrophotometric tests for the presence of a lysozyme-like principle in the serum also revealed similar trends with a significant loss of enzyme activity in 2,4,5-T-treated insects.
  • (10) All these strains produced an enterotoxic principle, antigenically related to cholera coli family of enterotoxins, as detected by latex agglutination and immuno-dot-blot tests.
  • (11) The basic principle of the resonant tool, its adaptation for surgery, the experimental results of its use in animals, and clinical experience are reported.
  • (12) It seems tragic, then, that so little of these principles transfer over to the container in which the work is done.
  • (13) This conception of the city as an expression of both regal power and social order, guided by cosmological principles and the pursuit of yin-yang equilibrium, was unlike anything in the western tradition.
  • (14) The general principles of bypass surgery as they affect the cerebral circulation are reviewed.
  • (15) The interest of this view resides in the resulting general principle of classification and interpretation of all forms of disease, giving rise to an "existenialistic pathology".
  • (16) Eight of the UK's biggest supermarkets have signed up to a set of principles following concerns that they were "failing to operate within the spirit of the law" over special offers and promotions for food and drink, the Office of Fair Trading has said.
  • (17) Although the general guiding principle of pharmacotherapy for anxiety disorders--the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time--remains, this rule should not interfere with the judicious use of medications as long as the benefits justify it.
  • (18) In older stages, the cervical joints rotate according to geometric and lever arm principles.
  • (19) Spain’s constitutional court responded by unanimously ruling that the legislation had ignored and infringed the rules of the 1978 constitution , adding that the “principle of democracy cannot be considered to be separate from the unconditional primacy of the constitution”.
  • (20) The principles and practice of aneasthesia for patients having coronary bypass grafts are discussed.