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.
Opportunity marries with circumstance and is midwife to the resultant bartering of public office. The mutuality is advantage to the parties involved merely facilitates the spread of such practices. When it reaches the point of being commonplace and is pragmatically perceived as the most practical means of getting things done, it has become systemic and difficult to eradicate.
ratu joni madraiwiwi— Opening remarks to Transparency International Pacific Regional Meeting, 13 April 2005
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'.
Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle— 1892 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,'A Case of Identity'.
A commonplace young man, A matter-of-fact young man, A steady and stolid-y, jolly Bank-Holiday Every-day young man!
Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert— 1881Bunthorne and Grosvenor's duet, Patience, act 2.
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).
Around the country, ideas that originated on the hard right or in the fevered imaginations of conspiracy theorists are finding their way into the mainstream. In a number of cases, these ideas have become commonplace in American minds.
chip berlet— "Into the Mainstream" in Intelligence Report (Summer 2003) at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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).
Cyprian was a boy who carried with him through early life the wondering look of a dreamer, the eyes of one who sees things that are not visible to ordinary mortals, and invests the commonplace things of this world with qualities unsuspected by plainer folk – the eyes of a poet or a house agent.
saki— "The Dreamer"
Commencement speakers have a good deal in common with grandfather clocks: Standing usually some six feet tall, typically ponderous in construction, more traditional than functional, their distinction is largely their noisy communication of essentially commonplace information. - Commencement address at University of Iowa.
— Commencement address, University of Iowa [1], Time (June 19, 1965)
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"
This longing for the bliss of the commonplace.
thomas mann— Ch. 4, and also in Ch. 9, as translated by David Luke
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)
In Walt Whitman democracy is carried into psychology and morals . The various sights, moods, and emotions are given each one vote; they are declared to be all free and equal, and the innumerable commonplace moments of life are suffered to speak like the others. Those moments formerly reputed great are not excluded, but they are made to march in the ranks with their companions plain foot-soldiers and servants of the hour.
george santayana— p. 53 (Vol. V, Reason in Science)
No age or condition is without its heroes . The least incapable general in a nation is its Cæsar, the least imbecile statesman its Solon , the least confused thinker its Socrates , the least commonplace poet its Shakespeare .
George Bernard Shaw— #136. (Maxims for Revolutionists (1903))
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— Vol. II (Yoshida Shoin Zenshu)
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!
— Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Stanza 38.
Nothing is more commonplace than the reading experience, and yet nothing is more unknown. Reading is such a matter of course that at first glance it seems there is nothing to say about it.
— Tzvetan Todorov in Reading as Construction, as translated from French by Marilyn A. August
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— Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living, 1938-05-13
