THE VIKING BOOK OF APHORISMS (405 pp.) Selected by W. H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger Viking ($6.50).
An aphorism forces the eye off the page and into the contemplative middle distance; it takes a moment's time to decide whether the author has skewered a truth or merely shaken it up. The collectors have selected from the great aphorists such as G. K. Chesterton and Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, but also from such little-known men of perception as Claude Bernard and the late Cesare Pavese.
Samplings :
> The man who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn. Henry...