I took a spin through some back issues of Reader’s Digest, where I first discovered aphorisms, and was delighted (and surprised) by what I found. I sampled a few issues from the late 1960s and early 1970s, and I was reminded of the Points to Ponder recurring feature, a version of the Quotable Quotes page with slightly longer sayings.

One Point to Ponder quotes G.K. Chesterton defining in a single sentence the most important lesson he had learned in life:

The critical thing was whether one took things for granted or took them with gratitude.

Another Point to Ponder features Henry David Thoreau’s extended metaphor comparing arranging a fine life with arranging a fine fire:

When I am going out for an evening I arrange the fire in my stove so that I do not fail to find a good one when I return, though it would have engaged my frequent attention had I been present. Sometimes, when I know I am to be home, I make believe I may go out and I build my best fire. And this is the art of living, too — to leave our life in a condition to go alone, and not to require a constant supervision. We will then sit down serenely to live, as by the side of a stove.

Gotta love the old ads, too!

Joseph Pulitzer makes an appearance, with some excellent advice for writers in thinking about readers:

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.

And the surprise was seeing Malcolm de Chazal on the Quotable Quotes page, one of the all-time great aphorists but not very well known, then or now. The editors at Reader’s Digest had some eclectic tastes…

Old age lives minutes slowly, hours quickly; childhood chews hours and swallows minutes.