Commonplace Quotes
More Commonplace Quotes
Sometimes a neighbor whom we have disliked a lifetime for his arrogance and conceit lets fall a single commonplace remark that shows us another side, another man, really; a man uncertain, and puzzled, and in the dark like ourselves.
willa cather— Shadows on the Rock, Epilogue
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.
Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.
— 1911Thousand and One Epigrams.
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).
It is a commonplace observation that liberals believe in the perfectibility of man while conservatives believe in the endurance of original sin. Superficially, that would suggest that conservatives take a more understanding and indulgent view of individual lapses, while liberals take a more harshly judgmental one. In fact, we know, quite the opposite is the case.
William A. Henry III— In Defense of Elitism
Man is sick and nations have gone mad.You would not even tolerate for one moment the conduct in an individual that is commonplace in the acts of some nations. You would lock up such a person.
l. ron hubbard— "Times Must Change" in Ability # 179 (20 March 1966)
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)
My curiosity was in no way cruel. Deviations from the commonplace attracted me strongly, as they still do; and to me the hermaphrodite and the living skeleton were interesting for the same reason as was Creatore, or the resplendent Guardsmen of the bands because such people did not often come my way, and I hoped that they might impart some great revelation to me, some insight which would help me to a clearer understanding of the world about me.
Robertson Davies— I Remember Creatore (1948)
I remember when hard-core first became commonplace, and there were discussions about what it would be like if a serious director ever made a porn movie. The answer, judging by Anatomy of Hell, is that the audience would decide they did not require such a serious director after all.
roger ebert— Review of Anatomy of Hell (12 November 2004)
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
[I]t is necessary to insist upon this extraordinary but undeniable fact: experimental science has progressed thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre. That is to say, modern science, the root and symbol of our actual civilization, finds a place for the intellectually commonplace man and allows him to work therein with success.
josé ortega y gasset— Chapter XII: The Barbarism Of "Specialisation"
[I]t would be a piece of ingenuousness to accuse the man of to-day of his lack of moral code. The accusation would leave him cold, or rather, would flatter him. Immoralism has become a commonplace, and anybody and everybody boasts of practising it.
josé ortega y gasset— Chapter XV: We Arrive At The Real Question
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
A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.
john lancaster spalding— p. 270 (Aphorisms and Reflections (1901))
The Senate of the United States has been both extravagantly praised and unreasonably disparaged, according to the predisposition and temper of its various critics... The truth is, in this case as in so many others, something quite commonplace and practical. The Senate is just what the mode of its election and the conditions of public life in this country make it.
— Congressional Government, A Study in American Politics (1885; republished 1981), chapter 4, p. 135 (1981).
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))
The acceptance of ambiguity implies more than the commonplace understanding that some good things and some bad things happen to us. It means that we know that good and evil are inextricably intermixed in human affairs; that they contain, and sometimes embrace, their opposites; that success may involve failure of a different kind, and failure may be a kind of triumph.
— Sydney J. Harris, in Clearing the Ground (1986) Learning to Live with Ambiguity
Thou unassuming Common-place Of Nature, with that homely face, And yet with something of a grace, Which Love makes for thee!
william wordsworth— To the Same Flower (the Daisy), st. 1 (1805).
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)
