Sunday, September 25, 2005

Chiasmus..es

The OED defines "chiasmus" as, "A grammatical figure by which the order of words in one of two of parallel clauses is inverted in the other."
chiasmus.com

Some fine examples:
“Never be haughty to the humble; never be humble to the haughty.”- Jefferson Davis

“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”- George Orwell

“Life creates order, but order does not create life.”- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.”- Percy Bysshe Shelley

“People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.”- Edmund Burke

“By the way, I heard an answer today to the platitude: ‘There's no money in poetry.’
It was: ‘There's no poetry in money, either.’”- Robert Graves

“In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.”- Lenny Bruce

“People in cars cause accidents and accidents in cars cause people.”- Garrison Keillor

“You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”- Ray Bradbury

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