222: Aphorisms & Reflections
is an attempt to breathe new life into the art of the aphorism and the brief reflection (or meditation), brought to near-perfection in Western culture over the last five centuries by Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Lichtenberg, Nietzsche, Kafka, E.M. Cioran, Karl Kraus, Fernando Pessoa, and many others. About four in ten of the entries in
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consist of "conversations" between Steven Carter and aphorists of the past, including many of the above. In publishing this initial volume of a projected multi-volume work, Carter hopes to join the ranks of current aphorists and anthologists—James Richardson and James Geary, to name two—whose recent works help to further the grand tradition of the aphorism, which began in ancient Greece with Hippocrates, the West's first known aphorist. While
is primarily intended for a general college-educated audience, everyone can enjoy a good aphorism-as the Americans Josh Billings, Will Rogers, and especially Mark Twain have shown.