Archive: August 2026

I love it when life delivers literature.

New neighbors are moving in across the street, and they have entrusted the Anthony Ward Thomas firm with all their worldly goods. Two bright red Anthony Ward Thomas moving trucks were parked across the street all day yesterday. In Greek, the word for ‘transport’ is metaphorá (μεταφορά), so all the moving trucks in Greece have metaphorá written across their sides. This is where the English word ‘metaphor’ comes from, which metaphorically means to transport the meaning of one thing to another thing.

So yesterday the Anthony Ward Thomas firm literally delivered two aphorisms to my front door:

You only fail if you quit

and

Action is the real measure of intelligence

This is what aphorisms do: Deliver practical wisdom for everyday life right to your front door.

Thanks to Callum, Ben and Oliver at the amazing Pints of Knowledge for hosting me and The World in A Phrase on August 24. And thanks to all the engaged and enthusiastic folks who came out to the magnificent Old Queen’s Head “gin palace” in Islington to juggle words, ideas, and balls.

What a lovely, atmospheric space it is upstairs at the Old Queen’s Head! And what a perfect venue for an hour-long conversation about aphorisms, practical philosophy for daily life.

There was a blank sheet selected from the globe and the theme was: loss. The audience had some helpful suggestions — along classic Stoic lines like ‘Never love anything that can be taken away’ and romantic lines like ‘It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — as I racked my brain to remember a haunting aphorism by Antonio Porchia. Alas, I could only recall the second part of the aphorism, so the person who chose the blank sheet got a free copy of my book. You can see her in this pic at bottom left:

And the aphorism by Porchia, who in the mid-20th century ran a small printing business with his brothers in Argentina before retiring to his garden to write aphorisms, is

The loss of a thing affects us until we have lost it altogether.