Pithy sayings (four well-known ones containing the circled word are the keys to unlocking this puzzle's theme)

Usage examples of aphorisms.

It consisted of a selection of original aphorisms by an anonymous gentleman, who in this bashful manner gave a bruised heart to the world.

Lady Blandish, pressing an almondy finger-nail to one of the Aphorisms, which instanced how age and adversity must clay-enclose us ere we can effectually resist the magnetism of any human creature in our path.

Shall I ever forget that rainy day in Lyons, that dingy bookshop, where I found the Aetius, long missing from my Artis bledicae Principes, and where I bought for a small pecuniary consideration, though it was marked rare, and was really tres rare, the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, edited by and with a preface from the hand of Francis Rabelais?

Berry to study, and really excellent Aphorisms sprang from the plain human bases this natural couple presented.

Jesse Corn, the resident storehouse of aphorisms, as he politely let her precede him up the narrow path.