Commonplace Quotes - Page 2

• The distance runner is mysteriously reconciling the separations of body and mind, of pain and pleasure, of the conscious and the unconscious. He is repairing the rent, and healing the wound in his divided self. He has found a way to make the ordinary extraordinary; the commonplace unique; the everyday eternal.

  George A. Sheehan

  Pain, Distance, Healing

  George A. Sheehan, George Sheehan (1992). “Dr. George Sheehan on getting fit & feeling great”, Outlet

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• To hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first . . . acceptance totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are [;] . . . the second . . . that one must never, in one's life, accept . . . injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's strength.

  James A. Baldwin

  Fighting, Acceptance, Men

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• Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them. They lived in their writings, and sotheir house and street life was trivial and commonplace. If you would know their tastes and complexions, the most admiring of their readers most resembles them.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Cousin, Writing, House

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.635, Library of America

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• The ironies in the commonplace are my inspiration and delight.

  Mason Cooley

  Inspiration, Delight, Irony

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• Here then is the pattern in my carpet, the sense of the eternal mysteries, the eternal beauty hidden beneath the crust of common and commonplace things; hidden and yet burning and glowing continually if you care to look with purged eyes.

  Arthur Machen

  Eye, Glowing, Looks

  "The London Adventure". Book by Arthur Machen, p.25, 1924.

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• Comedy defends the commonplace; tragedy explodes it.

  Mason Cooley

  Tragedy, Comedy

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• You on the cutting edge of technology have already made yesterday's impossibilities the commonplace realities of today.

  Ronald Reagan

  Cutting, Science, Technology

  United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), Ronald Reagan (1982). “Ronald Reagan”

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• Though Americans talk a good deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious, like Adlai Stevenson, is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn, like General Eisenhower. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging.

  Russell Baker

  People, Jogging, Serious

  "So This Is Depravity". Book by Russell Baker, 1980.

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• ... beauty, like ecstasy, has always been hostile to the commonplace. And the commonplace, under its popular label of the normal,has been the supreme authority for Homo sapiens since the days when he was probably arboreal.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Beauty, Normal, Labels

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• Cliche refers to words, commonplace to ideas. Cliche describes the form or the letter, commonplace the substance or spirit. To confuse them is to confuse the thought with the expression of the thought. The cliche is immediately perceivable; the commonplace very often escapes notice if decked out in original dress. There are few examples, in any literature, of new ideas expressed in original form. The most critical mind must often be content with one or the other of these pleasures, only too happy when it is not deprived of both at once, which is not too rarely the case.

  Remy de Gourmont

  Often Is, Expression, Ideas

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• Love is like magic and it always will be. For love still remains life's sweet mystery! Love works in ways that are wondrous and strange and there's nothing in life that love cannot change! Love can transform the most commonplace into beauty and splendor and sweetness and grace. Love is unselfish, understanding and kind, for it sees with its heart and not with its mind! Love is the answer that everyone seeks... Love is the language, that every heart speaks. Love can't be bought, it is priceless and free, love, like pure magic, is life's sweet mystery!

  Helen Steiner Rice

  Love, Sweet, Heart

  Helen Steiner Rice (2007). “A Collection of Love Gifts”, p.3, Barbour Publishing

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• ...The final secret is that there is no secret. Devote yourself to your leader. Work hard. Be grateful. Act boldly. Some may deride such suggestions as commonplace, and they'd be right: They are common. But to see them successfully enacted in this world is rare indeed.

  Toyotomi Hideyoshi

  Motivational, Success, Leadership

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• My friend had a brilliant idea. This impressed me. It reflected an immense deal of credit on his brain. But when he expressed it,it lost all value, and enjoyed but a commonplace status. My friend blamed this devaluation on the language. "I hate English," he said. So he studied another language. He mastered it so perfectly that there was no room left in his brain for a brilliant idea. Now he has a grudge against words. He refuses to use them. He prefers to shrug or grunt. A new crop of ideas is growing. They show promise of future refinement.

  Marvin L. Cohen

  Hate, Ideas, Brain

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• Beauty belongs to the sphere of the simple, the ordinary, whilst ugliness is something extraordinary, and there is no question but that every ardent imagination prefers in lubricity, the extraordinary to the commonplace

  Marquis de Sade

  Simple, Imagination, Ordinary

  Sade (marquis de), Marquis de Sade (1987). “The 120 days of Sodom and other writings”, Grove Pr

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• We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you, have not been shaped by a paterfamilias or a schoolmaster, they have sprung from very different beginnings, having been influenced by evil or commonplace that prevailed round them. They represent a struggle and a victory.

  Marcel Proust

  Attitude, Struggle, Journey

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• I always cheerfully say, "Well, you know, the species is adapting, and whatever it needs to do, it'll do," but I do think it's maybe a little bit alarming. Everybody knows that one thing we really have to do is to be more wherever we are, more present, that's just kind of a commonplace. And the whole mobile phone thing is completely 100% the opposite - to never be where you are because you can always be somewhere else; and yet it's so fun and addictive.

  George Saunders

  Fun, Thinking, Phones

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Even though I support the blue side of Manchester's football heritage, I don't really mind that wherever I go in the world it's not Manchester City that starts the conversation. 'Ah, yes, Manchester United,' is the response when I say where I come from. It's commonplace everywhere - in Europe, Africa, Asia and even the U.S.

  Lucy Powell

  Football, Blue, Europe

  " Manchester's sporting success led to Team GB's Olympic glory" by Lucy Powell, www.theguardian.com. August 29, 2008.

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• The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.

  John Stuart Mill

  Truth, Honesty, Men

  John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, John Troyer (2003). “The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill”, p.172, Hackett Publishing

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• We imagine that we want to escape our selfish and commonplace existence, but we cling desperately to our chains.

  Anne Sullivan Macy

  Teacher, Selfish, Live Life

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• Most remarks that are worth making are commonplace remarks. The things that makes them worth saying is that we really mean them.

  Robert Staughton Lynd

  Mean, Corny, Remarks

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• At a certain age, death becomes familiar to you-or a loss becomes familiar-the tragedies that are more commonplace in life.

  Jessica Lange

  Loss, Tragedy, Corny

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• To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Men, Ignorant, Corny

  Jorge Luis Borges, Donald A. Yates, James East Irby (1964). “Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings”, p.114, New Directions Publishing

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• It is a commonplace by now to say that the urban school systems of America contain a higher percentage of Negro children each year.

  Jonathan Kozol

  Children, School, Years

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• I always find it kind of embarrassing, kind of funny, and kind of exciting. In New York I'm recognized a lot, although nobody says anything. You know, they stare at you just a second too long. But in Paris it's not as commonplace to be recognized.

  Marc Jacobs

  New York, Paris, Long

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• Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Mind, Literature, Littles

  Thousand and One Epigrams (1911) p. 133

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