James Geary
You only really discover the strength of your spine when your back is against the wall.Collection: Wall
Metaphor lives a secret life all around us. We utter about six metaphors a minute. Metaphorical thinking is essential to how we understand ourselves and others, how we communicate and learn, discover and invent.Collection: Thinking
A simile is just a metaphor with the scaffolding still up.Collection: Smile
The mind revels in conjecture. Where information is lacking, it will gladly fill in the gaps.Collection: Mind
By bringing together what we know and what we don't know through analogy, metaphorical thinking strikes the spark that ignites discovery.Collection: Thinking
London always reminds me of a brain. It is similarly convoluted and circuitous. A lot of cities, especially American ones like New York and Chicago, are laid out in straight lines. Like the circuits on computer chips, there are a lot of right angles in cities like this. But London is a glorious mess. It evolved from a score or so of distinct villages, that merged and meshed as their boundaries enlarged. As a result, London is a labyrinth, full of turnings and twistings just like a brain.Collection: New York
Heroism often results as a response to extreme events.Collection: Heroism
Aphorisms are literature's hand luggage. Light and compact, they fit easily into the overhead compartment of your brain.Collection: Light
Metaphors hide in plain sight, and their influence is largely unconscious. We should mind our metaphors, though, because metaphors make up our minds.Collection: Sight
Metaphor impinges on everything, allowing us - poets and non-poets alike - to experience and think about the world in fluid, unusual ways.Collection: Thinking
Advice is given freely because so much of it is worthless.Collection: Advice
Sometimes, you need a door slammed in your face before you can hear opportunity knock.Collection: Opportunity
In the margin for error lies all our room for maneuver.Collection: Lying
I believe aphorisms are best when first read in the wild, free from the confines of any categories.Collection: Believe