Ordinary Man Quotes

• A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

  Joseph Campbell

  Life, Inspiring, Veterans Day

  Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers (2011). “The Power of Myth”, p.151, Anchor

  157 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart.

  Mencius

  Positive, Christmas, Wisdom

  Confucius, Mencius (1861). “The works of mencius”, p.198

  128 Copy quote

  Show source

• The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways.

  Tahir Shah

  Men, Way, Taste

  Tahir Shah (2013). “House of the Tiger King, Dyslexic edition”, p.96, Lulu.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Great men are just ordinary men that didn't quit.

  Tommy Barnett

  Men, Ordinary, Quitting

  22 Copy quote

• No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Motherhood, Opportunity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph H. Orth, Glen M. Johnson (1994). “The Topical Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.115, University of Missouri Press

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is difficult, none the less, for the ordinary man to cast off orthodox beliefs, for he is seldom allowed to hear the other side... Whereas the Christian view is pressed on him day in and day out.

  Margaret E. Knight

  Christian, Men, Views

  26 Copy quote

• I am an ordinary man who worked hard to develop the talent I was given.

  Muhammad Ali

  Men, Ordinary, Talent

  9 Copy quote

• Any ordinary man can...surround himself with two thousand books...and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy.

  Augustine Birrell

  Happiness, Book, Men

  7 Copy quote

• One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Inspirational, Motivational, Strength

  A Thousand and One Epigrams (1911)

  108 Copy quote

  Show source

• A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Inspirational, Motivational

  99 Copy quote

• The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind - not the fiend or the sadist.

  Erich Fromm

  Fear, Power, Men

  Erich Fromm (2011). “The Heart of Man”, p.18, Lantern Books

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity. But an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children literally alter the destiny of nations.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Destiny, Men

  9 Copy quote

• This is why I say that the individual's most potent weapon is a stubborn belief in the triumph of common decency.

  Paul Rusesabagina

  Common Decency, Triumph, Stubborn

  Paul Rusesabagina (2009). “An Ordinary Man: The True Story Behind Hotel Rwanda”, p.130, Bloomsbury Publishing

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Kindness is not an illusion and violence is not a rule. The true resting state of human affairs is not represented by a man hacking his neighbor into pieces with a machete. That is a sick aberration. No, the true state of human affairs is life as it ought to be lived.

  Paul Rusesabagina

  Kindness, Men, Sick

  Paul Rusesabagina (2009). “An Ordinary Man: The True Story Behind Hotel Rwanda”, p.130, Bloomsbury Publishing

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a terrible alienation in the ordinary man between what he is being told and what he secretly believes.

  John le Carre

  Believe, Men, Ordinary

  18 Copy quote

• The passing of an ordinary man is sad. The passing of a great man is tragic, and doubly tragic when the greatness passes before the man does.

  Harpo Marx

  Greatness, Men, Ordinary

  Harpo Marx, Rowland Barber (2004). “Harpo Speaks!”, p.400, Hal Leonard Corporation

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• A democracy without faith is just a machine without power. Nothing can make it function except faith in itself, in the ordinary man and woman.

  Eleanor Dark

  Men, Democracy, Ordinary

  7 Copy quote

• Higgins: I'm an ordinary man, who desires nothing more than just an ordinary chance, to live exactly as he likes, and do precisely what he wants. An average man am I, of no eccentric whim, Who likes to live his life, free of strife Doing whatever he thinks is best for him, Well, just an ordinary man

  Rex Harrison

  Life, Men, Thinking

  11 Copy quote

• We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women.

  Carl Jung

  Drama, Moving, Heart

  Carl Gustav Jung, Richard Francis Carrington Hull (1992). “Two Essays on Analytical Psychology”, p.257, Psychology Press

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The years go by one after the other; time slips past us with out our being aware of it; we grow old like ordinary men and we shall end like them.

  Louis XIV

  Past, Men, Years

  149 Copy quote

• That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in. and the best of me is diligence.

  William Shakespeare

  Persistence, Men, Ordinary

  William Shakespeare (2001). “King Lear”, p.63, Classic Books Company

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• War, the ordinary man's most convenient means of escaping from the ordinary.

  Philip Caputo

  War, Mean, Marine

  Philip Caputo (2014). “A Rumor of War”, p.6, Macmillan

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• An artist is only an ordinary man with a greater potentiality.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Men, Artist, Ordinary

  D. H. Lawrence, George J. Zytaruk, James T. Boulton (2002). “The Letters of D. H. Lawrence”, p.95, Cambridge University Press

  56 Copy quote

  Show source

• This inability to think created the possibility for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds on a gigantic scale, the like of which had never been seen before. The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge but the ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly. And I hope that thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.

  Hannah Arendt

  Beautiful, Men, Thinking

  128 Copy quote