Marketing & business aphorisms and quotes

This section is entirely devoted to aphorisms and quotes in business, marketing and digital.

I admit to being a great lover of these “magical phrases”. In particular, I find their strength lies in the following elements:

1. Brevity
   In an aphorism, a few words capture the essence of a subject. Life is short and the world of knowledge immense: we need to get to the heart of things and be able to express them in the length of a tweet!
2. Value
   The concept is expressed by leading experts in the subject. Thinking about and applying the concepts in these few sentences could be enough, rather than studying entire books. The ability to express value concisely and simply is a form of intelligence and deep knowledge of a subject. Typically, the less someone understands a concept, the more difficulty they have explaining it simply and/or summarising it. Their inspirational value is also very important, to the point that some of these phrases can become a company’s mission.
3. Memory
   A very useful feature of aphorisms is how easily they can be remembered. They often contain an element of surprise, created by the aesthetic form of the sentence, by paradox or by thinking outside the box.

Below is a selection of the best aphorisms and quotes, in both text and visual form, so they can be shared easily.

The difference between an aphorism and a quote

You have probably wondered what the difference is between an aphorism and a quote. We could get into a long discussion, but what matters is the value of the phrase. To be on the safe side, I put aphorisms and quotes together in the title.

For those who want to be precise, let’s look more closely, starting with the definitions of an aphorism and a quote.

Definition of an aphorism

One of the best definitions comes from the Zingarelli dictionary of the Italian language:

Aphorism. A brief maxim expressing a rule for life or a philosophical judgement in a vivid, concise and sometimes paradoxical form.

Definition of a quote

Let’s look at the definition from Wikipedia:

A quotation is the repetition of an expression reproduced in a text by someone other than its author. It is often a well-known expression or one explicitly attributed to its original source, and is marked by quotation marks.

In essence, an aphorism is an independent, self-contained phrase created as such and not taken from any source, whereas a quote is extracted from a wider context. A quote need not be literary either (for example, quotations in cinema or music).

Sometimes it can be difficult to identify the difference from the phrase alone, and context is needed to understand whether it originated independently.