maxim

There is a maxim in the advertising business that an advertisement has to be seen at least six times before anyone will remember it.

Malcolm Gladwell -- The Tipping Point

I had always believed in the maxim that the best way to predict the future was to create it.

Jack Gantos -- Hole in My Life

Like some of those who reached out to Luma for advice, I would sometimes press her to explain her philosophy, to attach words and maxims to the deeds in order to provide a framework for others who hoped to replicate the kind of program she’d created.

Warren St. John -- Outcasts United

The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

David McCullough -- John Adams

Nations ignore rules and maxims that, in their very nature, run counter to the necessities of society.

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, & John Jay -- The Federalist Papers — Modern English Edition 2

They soon progressed beyond maxims to applied practice.

Christopher Paolini -- Inheritance

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He lived by a single maxim: "Learn your horse."

Laura Hillenbrand -- Seabiscuit

The birds did not understand Snowball’s long words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbler animals set to work to learn the new maxim by heart.

George Orwell -- Animal Farm

Amy’s basically exploiting the sociopath’s most reliable maxim."

Gillian Flynn -- Gone Girl

Abenthy had given me a new piece of sympathy to practice: The Maxim of Variable Heat Transferred to Constant Motion, or something pretentious like that.

Patrick Rothfuss -- The Name of the Wind

The old man’s maxim was Apres moi le deluge.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky -- The Brothers Karamazov

"It’s only numbers, cadet," Hauptmann says, a favorite maxim.

Anthony Doerr -- All the Light We Cannot See

Portraits, maxims, occasional statues of the African madonna —they continued all the way to the hotel.

V.S. Naipaul -- A Bend in the River

But she only knew that the savor of it gave her an unparalleled sense of delight, a luscious and reckless and great-hearted warmth that spread downward to her toes, validating all quaint and ancient maxims as to the healing properties of wine.

William Styron -- Sophie’s Choice

The frequency of this has had the effect to establish among the slaves the maxim, that a still tongue makes a wise head.

Frederick Douglass -- The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

This last maxim my father seemed to consider a settler in most alleged cases of cruelty.

Harriet Beecher Stowe -- Uncle Tom’s Cabin

It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Arthur Conan Doyle -- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

"But you know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to expect the worst," said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have done with jests and to come to business.

Leo Tolstoy -- War and Peace

That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it is liable to abuse.

Charlotte Bronte -- Jane Eyre

The detestable maxim, Live on the CHAPTER XIX.

Victor Hugo -- Les Miserables

Villefort’s first impression was favorable; but he had been so often warned to mistrust first impulses, that he applied the maxim to the impression, forgetting the difference between the two words.

Alexandre Dumas -- The Count of Monte Cristo

Stella was a headstrong woman with bohemian tastes and driving artistic ambitions, for both herself and her kin; she self-published a literary journal, theRuess Quartette, the cover of which was emblazoned with the family maxim: "Glorify the hour."

Jon Krakauer -- Into the Wild

Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil the child."

Washington Irving -- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Or, more simply, the maxim of St. Augustine: "Love, and then do what you will."

John Howard Griffin -- Black Like Me

He stared at it stupidly for a moment, thinking of that old Navy maxim: Whatever CAN go wrong WILL go wrong.

Stephen King -- Misery

{2} Although we usually call reward and punishment the two hinges upon which all government turns, yet I could never observe this maxim to be put in practice by any nation except that of Lilliput.

Jonathan Swift -- Gulliver’s Travels

For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle.

Herman Melville -- Moby Dick

’My poor papa’s maxim,’ Mrs. Micawber observed.

Charles Dickens -- David Copperfield

That’s the maxim of the law.

James Joyce -- Ulysses

In partial answer to this I would say that I think I have learned, in some degree at least, to disregard the old maxim which says, "Do not get others to do that which you can do yourself."

Booker T. Washington -- Up From Slavery: An Autobiography

"Well, my sweet," said Miss Pross, nodding her head emphatically, "the short and the long of it is, that I am a subject of His Most Gracious Majesty King George the Third;" Miss Pross curtseyed at the name; "and as such, my maxim is, Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On him our hopes we fix, God save the King!"

Charles Dickens -- A Tale of Two Cities

First he says: Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a Universal Law of Nature.

Jostein Gaarder -- Sophie’s World

Up to that time, whether from devotedness or from want of power to act against it, this maxim, without being generally adopted, nevertheless passed from theory into practice; but the notes did it injury.

Alexandre Dumas -- The Three Musketeers

Every maxim of war was archaic.

Pat Frank -- Alas, Babylon

This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."

Benjamin Franklin -- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Is this a proverb or a maxim?

Don DeLillo -- White Noise

It appears to me that this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical profession.

Charles Dickens -- Bleak House

Perhaps, then, you would bestow it as a reward on that person who wrote the ablest defence of your favourite maxim, that no one can ever be in love more than once in their life—your opinion on that point is unchanged, I presume?

Jane Austen -- Sense and Sensibility

Without disputing a maxim urged by such grave authority, the Palmer thanked them for their courtesy, but observed that he had included in his religious vow, an obligation never to speak in the kitchen on matters which were prohibited in the hall.

Sir Walter Scott -- Ivanhoe

And as it was always Mr. Sedley’s maxim not to talk about money matters before women, they had no inkling of the misfortunes that were in store for them until the unhappy old gentleman was forced to make gradual confessions.

William Makepeace Thackeray -- Vanity Fair

�own preservation and safety goes to corroborate and confirm the little code of laws which certain profound and sound-judging philosophers have laid down as the main-springs of all Nature’s deeds and actions: the said philosophers very wisely reducing the good lady’s proceedings to matters of maxim and theory: and, by a very neat and pretty compliment to her exalted wisdom and understanding, putting entirely out of sight any considerations of heart, or generous impulse and feeling.

Charles Dickens -- Oliver Twist

They knew Peter’s maxim, that money was a good egg, and should be laid in a warm nest.

George Eliot -- Middlemarch

As a maxim glibly repeated from childhood remains practically unmarked till some mature experience enforces it, so did this High-Place Hall now for the first time really show itself to Elizabeth-Jane, though her ears had heard its name on a hundred occasions.

Thomas Hardy -- The Mayor of Casterbridge

I shall understand all your ways in time; but, coming down with the true London maxim, that everything is to be got with money, I was a little embarrassed at first by the sturdy independence of your country customs.

Jane Austen -- Mansfield Park

"Thou art mistaken, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "according to the maxim quando caput dolet, etc." "I don’t understand any language but my own," said Sancho.

Miguel de Cervantes -- Don Quixote

’I wish the maxim were more generally acted on, in all cases,’ said the grey-headed gentleman.

Charles Dickens -- Nicholas Nickleby