This New Yorker cartoon, by William Haefelli from the May 21, 2001 issue, always strikes home for me, quite literally, since the same number of parents and children sit around our dinner table every evening.

I never regale my kids with aphorisms, of course, unless they ask … which, for some reason, they never do. And on the odd occasion when aphorisms are discussed, they rarely ask for second helpings…

This cartoon, also from The New Yorker (by George Price from the September 7, 1963 issue), is a sobering commentary on the power of aphorisms to cut right through even the most profound intoxications to present undiluted reality…