Commonplace Quotes
More Commonplace Quotes
I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have set off the fire alarm and have nothing to do but to wait. I do not think we will have to wait for long.
arthur c. clarke— "The Sentinel" (1948), originally titled "Sentinel of Eternity" this is the short story which later provided the fundamental ideas for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) written by Clarke and Stanley Kubrick.
Whatever his private behavior, the man and his work existed in different realms. Mencken's defects were commonplace; his virtues were not. So wonderfully uninhibited was his style that even a single sentence in a routine article proclaimed its begetter.
— 1994 Of H L Mencken. In the NewYork Times Book Review, 8 May.
A dim consciousness of infinite mystery and grandeur lies beneath all the commonplace of life . There is an awfulness and a majesty around us, in all our little worldliness .
albert pike— Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 190
A dim consciousness of infinite mystery and grandeur lies beneath all the commonplace of life. There is an awfulness and a majesty around us, in all our little worldliness.
albert pike— Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 190.
The division created by the English educated scholars who separate the Vedas and the Upanishads from the Puranas and thus make a distinction between the Vedic dharma and the Puranic dharma is a mistake born of ignorance . The Puranas are accepted as an authority on the Hindu dharma because they explain the knowledge contained in the Veda and the Upanishads to the average man, comment upon it, discuss it at great length and endeavour to apply it to the commonplace details of life .
— Sri Aurobindo, in "Sri Aurobindo Writings in Bengali Translated into English".
Thou unassuming commonplace Of Nature.
william wordsworth— William Wordsworth, To the Same Flower.
Singularity is almost invariablya clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult it is to bring it home.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle— 1892 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,'The Boscombe Valley Mystery'.
The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of description and the sentiment, is denied to me.
— 1826 OnJaneAusten. Journal,14 Mar.
Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.
Gertrude Stein— Quoted in Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin MyAutobiography (1964).
What though his head be empty, provided his commonplace book be full.
jonathan swift— 1704 ATale of aTub,'Digression in praise of digression', ch.7.
And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain.
Tennyson— 1850 In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 6, l.3-4.
With little here to do or see Of things that in the great world be, Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee For thou art worthy, Thou unassuming commonplace Of Nature, with that homely face, And yet with something of a grace Which love makes for thee!
william wordsworth— 1802 'To the Daisy', stanza1 (published1807).
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— The London Adventure (London: Martin Secker, 1924) p. 25
A commonplace of political rhetoric has it that the quality of a civilization may be measured by how it cares for its elderly. Just as surely, the future of a society may be forecast by how it cares for its young.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan— Family and Nation, ch. 3 (1986)
The Drama's altar isn't on the stage: it is candlesticked and flowered in the box office. There is the gold, though there be no frankincense nor myrrh; and the gospel for the day always The Play will Run for a Year. The Dove of Inspiration, of the desire for inspiration, has flown away from it; and on its roof, now, the commonplace crow caws candidly.
seán o'casey— Sunset and Evening Star (New York: Macmillan, 1954) p. 322.
I don't know what people find or like in me, I'm hopelessly commonplace! ... Current appreciation of my work is a bit "highbrow", I've always considered myself a popular artist.
maxfield parrish— "Bit of a Come-Back Puzzles Parrish" in The New York Times (3 June 1964)
The commonplace needs no defence,Dullness is in the critic’s eyes,Without a licence life evolvesFrom some dim phase its own surprise;Under these yellow-twinkling elms,Behind these hedges trimly shorn,As in a stable once, so hereIt may be born, it may be born.
william plomer— "The Bungalows", line 45, from A Shot in the Park (London: Jonathan Cape, 1955).
The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but transalate his visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions.
e. m. forster— A Room with a View (1908) Ch. 3
It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man's nature neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some persons who have long lived apart, solitude seemed to look out of its countenance. It had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.
thomas hardy— Bk. I, ch. 1.
When a man’s success becomes commonplace to him, it is his success no longer.
henry s. haskins— p. 104 (Meditations in Wall Street (1940))
No new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace.
h. p. lovecraft— "Ex Oblivione"
The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set up a utilitarian interpretation of the phenomenon of life which has come down to us and may still be considered as the commonplace of everyday thinking. ... An innate blindness seems to have closed the eyes of this epoch to all but those facts which show life as a phenomenon of utility
josé ortega y gasset— p. 16 (History as a System (1962))
Every intellectual effort sets us apart from the commonplace, and leads us by hidden and difficult paths to secluded spots where we find ourselves amid unaccustomed thoughts.
josé ortega y gasset— p. 15 (What is Philosophy? (1964))
Since God could have created a freedom in which there could be no evil (i.e., a state when men were happy and free and certain not to sin), it follows that He wished evil to exist. But evil offends Him. A commonplace case of masochism.
cesare pavese— 1938-05-13
It is a commonplace that Racine is untranslatable. This is not because his verse is difficult, but because it is not.
kenneth rexroth— Racine: Phèdre (p. 54)
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, "The Fifth Head of Cerberus", Orbit 10 (1972), ed. Damon Knight. Reprinted in a set of three novellas, The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972).
Our public prayers too often consist almost entirely of passages of Scripture not always judiciously chosen or well arranged and common-place phrases, which have been transmitted down for ages, from one generation to another, selected and put together just as we would compose a sermon or essay, while the heart is allowed no share in the performance; so that we may more properly be said to make a prayer than to pray.
— Edward Payson, p. 472. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!
— Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Stanza 38.
commonplace people have an answer for everything and nothing ever surprises them. They try to look as though they knew what you were about to say better than you did yourself, and when it is their turn to speak, they repeat with great assurance something that they have heard other people say, as though it were their own invention.
eugène delacroix— 25 February 1852 (p. 152)
