At the same time, he addressed complex issues by example or by giving an apophthegm or a maxim; a "word," resembling the spiritual advice or comment given by the earliest desert fathers.

You two are about to demonstrate the validity of that 2,500-year-old apophthegm.

Here is the quotation from Boswell, for 7 April 1775: Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.