The World in a Phrase - 2nd Edition by James Geary (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Celebrating the short, witty, philosophical phrases known as aphorisms, this delightful history is an entertaining tour through the wisest and wittiest sayings in the world.

Aphorisms are literature's hand luggage. Light and compact, they contain everything you need to get through a rough day at the office or a dark night of the soul. Aphorisms, the oldest written art form on the planet, have been going viral for thousands of years, delivering the short, sharp shock of old forgotten truths. Today, visual artists are mixing pithy language with compelling imagery and using social media to take the form into the future. In a world of disinformation and deepfakes, aphorisms point to the power of fresh debate over tired dogma and inconvenient truths over comfortable lies.

Starting in ancient China and ending with contemporary meme-makers and street artists, The World in A Phrase tells the story of the aphorism through brief biographies of some of its greatest practitioners: sages like Lao-tzu and the Buddha, philosophers like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, writers like George Eliot and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, humorists like Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker, activists like James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, poets like Langston Hughes and Kay Ryan, and artists like Jenny Holzer and David Byrne.

The World in A Phrase is for lovers of words and seekers of wisdom. This new edition of The New York Times bestseller features 26 additional aphorists and explores the aphorism in the age of social media, showing why these short sentences are the ultimate deep dives in an era when TL;DR has become a cultural catchphrase.

Review Quotes

"Aphorisms aren't just historical artifacts. People regularly come up with new ones, and even if they haven't come from the pen of Confucius or Emily Dickinson, they can shed light on the modernhuman experience with just a few words. . . . The bestselling book. . . contains a chunk of Geary's collection, ranging from the ancient world to today, along with explanations of the history and significance of each phrase. And while the classics still serve their purpose, modern aphorisms help guide us through the endless digital, cultural and political upheaval that is life in 2025."

-- "The Guardian"

"An accessible and funny guide to millennia of aphorisms."-- "The Irish Examiner"

"[An] entertaining love letter to the compact form."
--The New York Times, on the first edition

"A delight. . . . [The World in a Phrase] offers extraordinary phrases that any lover of the prickly thought and the graceful sentence can savor."
--The New York Sun, on the first edition

"Geary serves up old favorit[e] [aphorists]. . . . But he has also rustled up phrase-makers who are undeservedly forgotten."--The Washington Post, on the first edition

"It is impossible not to be swept along with Geary's enthusiasm."--The Times Literary Supplement, on the first edition

"Probably the definitive work on aphorisms. . . . [F]ellow fanatics will be delighted."--Publishers Weekly, on the first edition

About the Author

James Geary, an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, is the author of Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It, I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World, and Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists, among other books. He likes to juggle.