They should be keenly aware of the absurd, have a strong distaste for sham and be endowed with strong feelings for the simple joys of life. They must excel at the revealing anecdote, the smart phrase and the art of happy extravagance. Whether generalizing about the improbability of immortality, the joys of dining on roast pig, the absurdity of English manners or the diverse charms of the public toilets of Paris, their generalizations should be lively and always touched with a unique form of imaginative suggestiveness. Good generalizations should be neither maxims nor proverbs. Maxims suggest a label, a stock response, something waiting to be trotted out at the appropriate moment.
Generalizations tend to be more rewarding and more subversive than proverbs or maxims.
Indeed, it is often a maxim or a proverb that a generalization sets out to subvert. And, as an added charm, generalizations are less cut and dried, more speculative and glancing. There is no reason, however, why good generalizations cannot take on the form of aphorisms, for the most obvious characteristic of an aphorism, apart from its brevity is a generalization offering a comment on some recurrent aspect of life, couched in terms which are meant to be permanently and universally applicable. A generalization, whether it is an aphorism or not, is a form of literature, often highly idiosyncratic, and always bears the stamp and style of the mind that created it. The message of generalizations should be universal but not impersonal and their power depends on their verbal artistry, on a subtle or concentrated perfection of phrasing.