Commonplace Quotes - Page 14

• Publishers, theatrical managers, and critics ask not for the quality inherent in creative art, but will it meet with a good sale, will it suit the palate of the people? Alas, this palate is like a dumping ground; it relishes anything that needs no mental mastication. As a result, the mediocre, the ordinary, the commonplace represents the chief literary output.

  Emma Goldman

  Art, People, Creative

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.39, 谷月社

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• There is a certain artificial polish, a commonplace vivacity acquired by perpetually mingling in the beau monde; which, in the commerce of world, supplies the place of natural suavity and good-humour, but is purchased at the expense of all original and sterling traits of character.

  Washington Irving

  Character, World, Natural

  Washington Irving (1854). “The Works”, p.262

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• That which is the wonder of one age is the commonplace of the next.

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  Age, Next, Wonder

  Laura Ingalls Wilder, Stephen W. Hines (1991). “Little house in the Ozarks: a Laura Ingalls Wilder sampler : the rediscovered writings”, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• The ideas of the classics, so far as living, are our commonplaces. It is the modern books that give us the latest and most profound conceptions. It seems to me rather a lazy makeshift to mumble over the familiar.

  Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

  Book, Reading, Ideas

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• All systems of morality are fine. The gospel alone has exhibited a complete assemblage of the principles of morality, divested of all absurdity. It is not composed, like your creed, of a few common-place sentences put into bad verse. Do you wish to see that which is really sublime? Repeat the Lord's Prayer.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Bible, Prayer, Sublime

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 419), 1895.

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• A child, not knowing what is extraordinary and what is commonplace, usually lights midway between the two, finds interest in incidents adults consider beneath notice, and calmly accepts the most improbable occurrences.

  Gene Wolfe

  Children, Light, Two

  Gene Wolfe (1972). “The fifth head of Cerberus: three novellas”, Ultramarine Pub Co

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• That the existence of the Soviet Union has an international revolutionary significance is a commonplace equally recognized by friends and foes.

  Leon Trotsky

  Unions, Revolutionary, Existence

  Source: www.marxists.org

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• They made small effort to cover their raw souls with the mantle of commonplace words.

  Susan Glaspell

  Effort, Soul, Made

  Susan Glaspell, Eric S. Rabkin (1912). “Lifted Masks, and Other Works”, p.93, University of Michigan Press

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• The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should be undone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Civilization, People

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Barbara L. Packer, Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson (2003). “The Conduct of Life”, p.51, Harvard University Press

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• These commonplace categories - wife, mother, housewife, teacher - are in fact teleological referents. They gesture to profound states of being that animate, absorb and saturate the subject, like indelible dyes spilled repeatedly over a plain fabric. No matter if the fabric is sturdy or delicate, translucent or opaque, those dyes will stain. They will color the days and years and life.

  Shirley Geok-lin Lim

  Mother, Teacher, Color

  "Walking with Her Muse: An Interview with Shirley Geok-lin Lim". Contemporary Women's Writing, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 July 2014, Pages 123 - 135, academic.oup.com. June 22, 2013.

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• Not everything that can be extracted appears in anthologies of quotations, in commonplace books, or on the back of Celestial Seasonings boxes. Only certain sorts of extracts become quotations.

  Gary Saul Morson

  Book, Boxes, Anthology

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• Marked by a virulent notion of hardness and aggressive masculinity, a culture of violence has become commonplace in a society in which pain, humiliation and abuse are condensed into digestible spectacles endlessly circulated through extreme sports, reality TV, video games, YouTube postings, and proliferating forms of the new and old media.

  Henry Giroux

  Sports, Pain, Reality

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• You get help at the gym. No one complains about that. You get help from your trainer. That's commonplace, and I think we need to spend more time doing that with mental help. You know, a lot of us have issues that we don't work on and we don't deal with, and I try. I try my utmost.

  Trevor Noah

  Thinking, Issues, Trying

  "Trevor Noah Says He Grew Up 'In The Shadow Of A Giant' (His Mom)". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. November 22, 2016.

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• I ask the reader to remember that what is most obvious may be most worthy of analysis. Fertile vistas may open out when commonplace facts are examined from a fresh point of view.

  Lancelot Law Whyte

  Views, Analysis, May

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• One who aspires to greatness should read and study, pursuing the True Way with such a firm resolve that he is perfectly straightforward and open, rises above the superficialities of conventional behavior, and refuses to be satisfied with the petty or commonplace.

  Yoshida Shoin

  Greatness, Way, Study

  "Yoshida Shoin Zenshu" by Yoshida Shoin, vol. II, 1938.

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• One picture and one win cannot right a million wrongs. It's a step in the right direction.We have to get to a point where a movie like "Moonlight" winning [Oscar] or Barry Jenkins being nominated and winning, you know, for a screenplay or being nominated for best director - that it's just commonplace. They shouldn't be a novelty.

  Cheo Hodari Coker

  Winning, Steps, Novelty

  Source: www.npr.org

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• In very truth it is the unattained which gives zest to the commonplace and brims the cup of our daily life with keenest joy.

  Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

  Hope, Ambition, Zest

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• the territory of grief ... is both cruel and commonplace.

  Gail Caldwell

  Grief, Territory

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• As information technology becomes millions of times more powerful, any particular use of it becomes correspondingly cheaper. Thus, it has become commonplace to expect online services (not just news, but 21st century treats like search or social networking) to be given for free, or rather, in exchange for acquiescence to being spied on.

  Jaron Lanier

  Powerful, Technology, Networking

  Jaron Lanier (2014). “Who Owns the Future?”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

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• Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time.

  Michael Ende

  Thinking, Mystery, Corny

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• Knowing that others have gone through similar tragedies may be a help, but it should be remembered that every tragedy is not only commonplace but also unique.

  Judith Martin

  Unique, Knowing, Tragedy

  Judith Martin (1996). “Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: From Sexual Harassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing, and Other Lapses in Civility”, Crown

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• Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.

  Samuel Butler

  Men, Corny, Banality

  Samuel Butler (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)”, p.4298, Delphi Classics

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• Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing - 'Oh, let's put that sentence there, let's get rid of this' - have become commonplace in films and music too.

  Brian Eno

  Editing, Earth, Film

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• Sometimes a neighbor whom we have disliked a lifetime for his arrogance and conceit lets fall a single commonplace remark that shows us another side, another man, really; a man uncertain, and puzzled, and in the dark like ourselves.

  Willa Cather

  Forgiveness, Fall, Dark

  Willa Cather (1938). “The novels and stories of Willa Cather ...”

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• It is a commonplace of all religious thought, even the most primitive, that the man seeking visions and insight must go apart from his fellows and love for a time in the wilderness.

  Loren Eiseley

  Religious, Men, Vision

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