Commonplace Quotes - Page 15

• the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.

  Jack Kerouac

  Inspirational, Friends, Horse

  On the Road pt. 1, ch. 1 (1957)

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• I dance with people I despise; amuse myself with men whose only talent lies in their feet, gain the disapprobation of people I honor and respect; return home at day break with my brain in a state which was never intended for it; and arise in the middle of the next day feeling infinitely more, in spirit and flesh like a Liliputian, than a woman with body and soul. Entry (when she was eighteen) in her Commonplace Book, 1868-1869.

  Kate Chopin

  Lying, Book, Home

  Kate Chopin, Per Seyersted, Emily Toth (1979). “A Kate Chopin miscellany”, Northwestern State Univ

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• In a story you only had to wish, you only had to write it down and you could have the world...It seemed so obvious now that it was too late: a story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader's. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it. Reading a sentence and understanding it were the same thing; as with the crooking of a finger, nothing lay between them. There was no gap during which the symbols were unraveled.

  Ian Mcewan

  Reading, Writing, Mean

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• in dreams it is often the case that the greatest extravagances seem bereft of their power to astonish and the most improbable chimeras seem commonplace.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Dream, Extravagance, Cases

  Cormac McCarthy (2010). “Cities of the Plain”, p.285, Pan Macmillan

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• A story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader's. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it.

  Ian Mcewan

  Mean, Feelings, Mind

  Ian McEwan (2010). “Atonement”, p.37, Random House

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• Television screens saturated with commercials promote the utopian and childish idea that all problems have fast, simple, and technological solutions. You must banish from your mind the naive but commonplace notion that commercials are about products. They are about products in the same sense that the story of Jonah is about the anatomy of whales.

  Neil Postman

  Simple, Ideas, Whales

  Neil Postman (2011). “Conscientious Objections: Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education”, p.113, Vintage

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• Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual.

  Edward Weston

  Photography, Matter, Photographer

  Brett Abbott, Edward Weston, J. Paul Getty Museum (2005). “Edward Weston: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum”, p.60, Getty Publications

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• There is never vulgarity in a whole truth, however commonplace. It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation.

  John Ruskin

  Pain, Vulgarity Is, May

  John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.59, University of Virginia Press

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• Ya know, I always admired Ray Kroc, the man who invented McDonald's. Ray had a vision of the most commonplace thing - a hamburger and fries to go - but to him it was just the greatest thing ever, and he was going to make it the greatest thing ever for everybody else, and he did.

  David Lee Roth

  Men, Mcdonalds, Vision

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• The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.

  Thomas Hardy

  Years, Office, Decision

  Thomas Hardy (2007). “Thomas Hardy”, p.176, Wordsworth Editions

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• The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  People, Absence, Absent

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• The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Rights, Knowing, Mind

  La Rebelion de las Masas ch. 1 (1930)

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• At no time are people so sedulously careful to keep their trifling appointments, attend to their ordinary occupations, and thus put a commonplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret that if suspected would make them look monstrous in the general eye.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Eye, People, Secret

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (2015). “Complete Novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated Edition): Fanshawe, The Scarlet Letter with its Adaptation, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, The Dolliver Romance, Septimius Felton, Grimshawe's Secret and Biography”, p.815, e-artnow

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• The true poetry of life: the poetry of the commonplace, of the ordinary man, of the plain, toil-worn woman, with their loves and their joys, their sorrows and their griefs.

  William Osler

  Grief, Men, Joy

  Sir William Osler, Mark E. Silverman, T. J. Murray, Charles S. Bryan, American College of Physicians--American Society of Internal Medicine (2003). “The Quotable Osler”, p.31, ACP Press

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• I've never recognized 'emo' as a genre of music. I always thought it was the most retarded term ever. I know there is this generic commonplace that every band that gets labeled with that term hates it. They feel scandalized by it. But honestly, I just thought that all the bands I played in were punk rock bands. The reason I think it's so stupid is that - what, like the Bad Brains weren't emotional? What - they were robots or something? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

  Guy Picciotto

  Emo, Hate, Stupid

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• Ballet is the body rising. Ballet is ceremonial and hieratic. Its disdain for the commonplace material world is the source of its authority and glamour.

  Camille Paglia

  Ballet, Rising, World

  Camille Paglia (1990). “Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson”, Vintage

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• Finally, the scariest thing about abuse of any shape or form, is, in my opinion, not the abuse itself, but that if it continues it can begin to feel commonplace and eventually acceptable.

  Alan Cumming

  Abuse, Shapes, Opinion

  Alan Cumming (2014). “Not My Father's Son: A Family Memoir”, p.247, Canongate Books

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• There is an inability to sustain the tragic mood, a phoenix quality of the mind. It may be helpful or harmful, it is just a part of the will to survive—yet, also, it has made it possible for us to engage in one weakening war after another. But it is a necessary part of our mechanism that we should be able to cry only for a time over even an ocean of spilt milk—the spectacular must soon become the commonplace if life is to be supportable.

  John Wyndham

  War, Ocean, Will To Survive

  John Wyndham (1951). “The Day of the Triffids”, Fawcett

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• We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with.... Oh that God would make us dangerous!

  Jim Elliot

  Christian, Prayer, Religion

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• As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming.

  Trevanian

  Spiritual, Art, Real

  Trevanian (2005). “Shibumi: A Novel”, p.77, Broadway Books

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• The presumption of innocence is not just a legal concept. In commonplace terms, it rests on that generosity of spirit which assumes the best, not the worst, of the stranger.

  Kingman Brewster, Jr.

  Presumption Of Innocence, Generosity, Spirit

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• A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet is somebody who expresses his thoughts, however commonplace they may be, exquisitely. That is the one and only difference between the poet and everybody else.

  Mark Forsyth

  Differences, May, Philosopher

  Mark Forsyth (2013). “The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase”, p.15, Icon Books Ltd

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• To be original is to discover the commonplace of a thousand years--to face at first the sneer that no one would have thought of it, and at last the indifference because any one would.

  Gerald Stanley Lee

  Years, Lasts, Faces

  Gerald Stanley Lee (1896). “The Shadow Christ: An Introduction to Christ Himself”

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• Remarkable work is always not on the list, because if it was, it would be commonplace, not remarkable.

  Seth Godin

  Would Be, Lists, Remarkable

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• The dogs in our lives, the dogs we come to love and who (we fervently believe) love us in return, offer more than fidelity, consolation, and companionship. They offer comedy, irony, wit, and a wealth of anecdotes, the "shaggy dog stories" and "stupid pet tricks" that are commonplace pleasures of life.

  Marjorie Garber

  Dog, Stupid, Believe

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