Diminutive Voices, Volume 3: M–R: Aphorisms, Epigrams, and Adages

by Ken Bazyn

Publisher:

Resource Publications

, 2025

Overview

Aphorism, epigram, adage--the essence of each form is a saying short and pithy. Brief, condensed, and easy to recite, these represent a culture’s wise advice. What an aesthetics of the miniature! As French philosopher Gaston Bachelard observes, “The miniscule, a narrow gate, opens up an entire world.” Some such sayings are pure description, yet they hint at something more; others appear to be an elder’s admonition to a child; some resound with probing observations of human nature and God; others are light, whimsical wordplays. The Renaissance humanist Erasmus, who collected over four thousand adages, believed a proverb to be like a hurled javelin, striking the hearer’s mind with a short point, implanting barbs for meditation. Nietzsche proposed that “the relief-like, incomplete representation of a thought, or a whole philosophy is sometimes more effective than its exhaustive amplification.” So Bazyn’s gnomic verse functions almost like Zen koans to push readers into new ways of perceiving.

These four volumes, like a patchwork quilt, are interwoven with 196 color photographs (abstract to concrete), shot from myriad angles in assorted styles. When pondered seriously, they help unravel manifold meanings within each saying.

Praise for Diminutive Voices, Volume 3: M–R

We’re in an attention economy, where every character or second counts, as our algorithmic overlords prove to us each time we pick up our mobile phone. And yet, there is often little substance in the snippets of text we digest these days. In a welcome departure, Bazyn delves deeply into the aphorism as form, seeking to understand and emulate how authors in the past—Kafka is my personal favorite—managed to compress deep philosophical and theological insights into just a single sentence or two. These books won’t spawn many tweets, but they do suggest an antidote.

——Aaron Rosen, author of What Would Jesus See?

Product Details

• Title: Diminutive Voices, Volume 3: M–R: Aphorisms, Epigrams, and Adages
• Author: Ken Bazyn
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Print Publication Date: 2025
• Logos Release Date: 2025
• Pages: 108
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9798385241323, 9798385241309, 9798385241316
• Resource ID: LLS:9798385241323
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-23T00:32:16Z