He became known for the short, aphoristic sayings contained within the four slim volumes of poetry he published in his lifetime, such as the assertion that "Sexual intercourse began/In nineteen sixty-three".
But to say much that is striking, new or true about those would take aphoristic gifts or an astringency of mind that Mr Manguel does not claim to possess.
To the end, Strindberg debated current social and political ideas (returning to the radical views of his youth) in polemical articles, while his philosophy was expounded in the aphoristic Zones of the Spirit (1907 12).
Having requested and received a sick leave, Nietzsche in 1877 set up house with his sister and his friend Peter Gast (Johann Heinrich Köselitz), and in 1878 his aphoristic Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (Human, All-Too-Human) appeared.
Typically a pithy, easily memorized aphoristic saying based on experience and universal in application, the mashal in its simplest and oldest form was a couplet in which a definition was given in two parallel lines related to each other either antithetically or synthetically.
His teachings were transmitted by Arrian, his pupil, in two works: Discourses, of which four books are extant; and the Encheiridion, or Manual, a condensed aphoristic version of the main doctrines.
His urbane Epicureanism and personal charm, his aphoristic philosophy and studied perfection won him recognition as Rome's leading poet after the death of his friend Virgil.
The work remains incomplete, so that, in spite of the aphoristic brilliance, or the lyrical power, of many fragments, some of the thinking is enigmatic, incoherent, or even contradictory.
The distinctive feature of his prose and poetry, even when he is dealing with the most abstract of subjects, is sensuousness; his prose is aphoristic and graceful, his poetry rich in natural images and allusions, always classical in form, and, at its best, as sinewy, subtly rhythmical, and melodious as the very best verse of the great dramatist Jean Racine or the Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine.
It is an anthology of basic Buddhist teachings (primarily ethical teachings) in a simple aphoristic style.
The Cello Sonata (1914) marks his first effort to return to more expanded forms following his "aphoristic" period.
