He was not a great aphorist, but he had a genius for the deceptively homey metaphor (the book abounds with pennies, trains, mousetraps, pianos) and the extended polemical line that .
The novelist or essayist is a careful householder, hoarding his resources; the aphorist tosses his shiny gold coins on the floor, seeking neither to save nor to order them.
And as the aphorist Publilius Syrus wrote a couple thousand years ago, "A good reputation is more valuable than money.