Commonplace Quotes - Page 13

• Anything seems commonplace, once explained.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Seems

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• Ever since childhood I have scorned the commonplace limits so often set upon human ambition. Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury - to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone; best both for the body and the mind

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, Ambition, Simple

  Albert Einstein (2013). “Einstein on Politics: His Private Thoughts and Public Stands on Nationalism, Zionism, War, Peace, and the Bomb”, p.227, Princeton University Press

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• Which are the people who have influenced us most? Not the ones who thought they did, but those who had not the remotest notion that they were influencing us. In the Christian life, the implicit is never conscious, if it is conscious it ceases to have this unaffected loveliness which is the characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.

  Oswald Chambers

  Christian, Jesus, People

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition”, p.478, Discovery House

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• The profession of music is lacking in horse sense, not only because the commonplace variety of horse is absent from its operations, but because parts of the horse are noticeably present.

  Harry Partch

  Horse, Operations, Music Is

  Harry Partch, Thomas McGeary (2000). “Bitter Music: Collected Journals, Essays, Introductions, and Librettos”, p.174, University of Illinois Press

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• Found objects, chance creations, ready-mades (mass-produced items promoted into art objects, such as Duchamp's "Fountain"-urinal as sculpture) abolish the separation between art and life. The commonplace is miraculous if rightly seen.

  Charles Simic

  Art, Found Objects, Sculpture

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• There is no nobler chore in the craft of writing than holding up the mirror of reality and turning it slightly, so we have a new and different perception of the commonplace, the everyday, the 'normal,' the obvious. People are reflected in the glass. The fantasy situation into which you thrust them is the mirror itself. And what we are shown should illuminate and alter our perception of the world around us. Failing that, you have failed totally.

  Harlan Ellison

  Writing, Reality, Glasses

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• For A to sit down and think, What shall I do? is commonplace; but to think what B ought to do is interesting, romantic, moral, self-flattering, and public-spirited all at once. It satisfies a great number of human weaknesses at once. To go on and plan what a whole class of people ought to do is to feel one's self a power on earth, to win a public position, to clothe one's self in dignity. Hence we have an unlimited supply of reformers, philanthropists, humanitarians, and would-be managers-in-general of society.

  William Graham Sumner

  Thinking, Winning, Class

  William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.97, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• Left-wing social policies sicken our behavior and corrupt our culture. People bend principles and sacrifice integrity to get as much as they can from the government. Giveaway programs encourage every imaginable sort of cheating and dishonesty. Wheeling and dealing in food stamps is a way of life. Lying and fraud are commonplace. Whenever you're dependent on the money, the end justifies the means.

  James Cook

  Cheating, Lying, Integrity

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• It is commonplace of all religious thought that the man seeking visions and insight must go apart from his fellows and live for a while in the wilderness. If he is of proper sort, he will return with a message. It may not be a message from the god he set out to seek but even if he has failed in that particular, he will have had a vision or seen a marvel and these are always worth listening to or thinking about.

  Loren Eiseley

  Religious, Men, Thinking

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• ...I suddenly realized what small towns are. They are places where you grow up with the peculiar-you live next door to the strange and the unlikely for so long that everything and everyone become commonplace.

  John Irving

  Growing Up, Doors, Long

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• To do one's best in the face of the commonplace struggles of life, and possibly in the face of failures, and to continue to endure and persevere with the ongoing difficulties of life - when those struggles and tasks contribute to the progress and happiness of others and the eternal salvation of one's self - this is true greatness.

  Howard W. Hunter

  Struggle, Greatness, Self

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• Reddit names are unconnected to real-world identities and it's commonplace for users to create 'throwaway' accounts to reveal sensitive information.

  Ethan Zuckerman

  Real, Names, Identity

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• There are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called "powerful" novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Powerful, Historical Novels, Fiction

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1973). “Strong opinions”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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• When I use a name or place, I want to leave the reader open to the waterfall of determinacy that it may provoke. And I don't know, but I must mention the name Borges. I try to mention it in every one of my works. It's a mark, a stamp, a sort of homage to Argentinidad. But it's an homage that works through pat phrases, those stock images that populate his work: the night, labyrinths, libraries. That is, I don't want simply to pay homage to Borges, but rather the contrary: to recall his commonplaces.

  Sergio Chejfec

  Night, Names, Labyrinth

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• If to be interesting is to be uncommonplace, it is becoming a question, with me, if there are any commonplace people

  Mark Twain

  Inspiration, People, Interesting

  Mark Twain, John S. Tuckey (1972). “Mark Twain's Fables of Man”, p.196, Univ of California Press

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• Dreams or illusions, call them what you will, they lift us from the commonplace of life to better things.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Inspirational, Dream, Illusion

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2008). “Michael Angelo and Translations”, p.18, Wildside Press LLC

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• Be commonplace and creeping and you'll be a success.

  Pierre Beaumarchais

  Success

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• Art just consists in making us swallow the commonplaces by charming us eternally.

  Marie Bashkirtseff

  Art, Charming

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• A hotel is a hotel all the world over, a place essentially vulgar, commonplace, venal, the travesty of a human home.

  Margaret Oliphant

  Travel, Home, World

  Mrs. Oliphant (Margaret) (1894). “A House in Bloomsbury”

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• We've surrounded the most vital and commonplace human function with a vast morass of taboos, convention, hypocrisy, and plain claptrap.

  Ilka Chase

  Sex, Hypocrisy, Conventions

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• It is a commonplace observation that liberals believe in the perfectibility of man while conservatives believe in the endurance of original sin. Superficially, that would suggest that conservatives take a more understanding and indulgent view of individual lapses, while liberals take a more harshly judgmental one. In fact, we know, quite the opposite is the case.

  William A. Henry III

  Believe, Men, Views

  William A. Henry, III (2015). “In Defense of Elitism”, p.157, Anchor

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• Man, in spite of his tendency towards mendacity, has a great respect for what he calls the truth. Truth is his staff in his voyage through life; commonplaces are the bread in his bag and the wine in his jug.

  Remy de Gourmont

  Wine, Men, Jugs

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• we have these instincts which defy all our wisdom and for which we never can frame any laws. ... They are powers which are imperfectly developed in this life, but one cannot help the thought that the mystery of this world may be the commonplace of the next.

  Sarah Orne Jewett

  Law, World, May

  Sarah Orne Jewett, Richard Cary (1966). “Deephaven and Other Stories”, p.130, Rowman & Littlefield

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• I do believe that half a dozen commonplace attorneys could so mystify and misconstrue the Ten Commandments, and so confuse Moses' surroundings on Mount Sinai, that the great law-giver, if he returned to this planet, would doubt his own identity, abjure every one of his deliverances, yea, even commend the very sins he so clearly forbade his people.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Believe, Law, People

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• Society chooses to disregard the mistreatment of children, judging it to be altogether normal because it is so commonplace.

  Alice Miller

  Children, Judging, Normal

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