Commonplace Quotes

• As a rule, said Holmes, the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Literature, Faces, Mysterious

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1892). “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, p.43

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• Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

  Charles Mingus

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Music

  Charles Mingus' statement in Mainliner Magazine (July 1977); later quoted in Olivia Bertagnolli "Creativity and the writing process" (p. 182), 1982.

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• Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature.

  Jean Cocteau

  Jobs, Light, Done

  "A Call to Order". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1926.

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• Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.

  Gertrude Stein

  Interesting, Corny, Imitation

  Quoted in Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin My Autobiography (1964).

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• Standing ovations have become far too commonplace. What we need are ovations where the audience members all punch and kick one another.

  George Carlin

  Needs, Ovation, Corny

  George Carlin (2002). “Napalm & Silly Putty”, Hyperion

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• Making the simple complicated is commonplace.

  Charles Mingus

  Creativity, Simple, Plain Language

  Charles Mingus' statement in Mainliner Magazine (July 1977); later quoted in Olivia Bertagnolli "Creativity and the writing process" (p. 182), 1982.

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• To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity.

  William Arthur Ward

  Inspirational, Laughter, Attitude

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• We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thrusting it into our dreams or surrendering it to the free play of our subjectivity.

  Raoul Vaneigem

  Dream, Play, Subjectivity

  Raoul Vaneigem, Donald Nicholson-Smith (2012). “The Revolution of Everyday Life”, p.3, PM Press

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• Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

  Cecil Beaton

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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• As a rule, the more bizarre a thing is, the less mysterious it proves to be.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Book, Mysterious, Language

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1892). “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, p.43

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• The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved.

  Jack Kerouac

  Hippie, Yawning, People

  On the Road pt. 1, ch. 1 (1957)

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• My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application-not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech-and learn them so well that words become works.

  Seneca the Younger

  Teaching, Writing, Happy Life

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• Because the only people for me are the mad ones.

  Jack Kerouac

  Hippie, Yawning, People

  On the Road pt. 1, ch. 1 (1957)

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• Look up . . . and see them.
  The teaching stars,
  beyond worship
  and commonplace tongues.

  Dorothy Dunnett

  Stars, Teaching, Looks

  Dorothy Dunnett (1999). “The Game Of Kings: The Lymond Chronicles Book One”, p.194, Penguin UK

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• We look for visions of heaven and we never dream that all the time God is in the commonplace things and people around us.

  Oswald Chambers

  God, Dream, People

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “The Quotable Oswald Chambers”, p.276, Discovery House

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• Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely way, there God is hewing out the pillars for His temple.

  Phillips Brooks

  Soul, Way, Pillars

  Phillips Brooks, John Cotton Brooks (1910). “Sermons: The candle of the Lord, and other sermons”

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• Originality is never embraced as quickly as the commonplace.

  Franklyn Ajaye

  Originality

  Franklyn Ajaye (2002). “Comic Insights: The Art of Stand-up Comedy”

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• Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.

  Eric Hoffer

  Self, Miracle, Corny

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet is somebody who expresses his thoughts, however commonplace they may be, exquisitely. That is the one and only difference between the poet and everybody else.

  Mark Forsyth

  Differences, May, Philosopher

  Mark Forsyth (2013). “The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase”, p.15, Icon Books Ltd

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• We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with.... Oh that God would make us dangerous!

  Jim Elliot

  Christian, Prayer, Religion

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• The dogs in our lives, the dogs we come to love and who (we fervently believe) love us in return, offer more than fidelity, consolation, and companionship. They offer comedy, irony, wit, and a wealth of anecdotes, the "shaggy dog stories" and "stupid pet tricks" that are commonplace pleasures of life.

  Marjorie Garber

  Dog, Stupid, Believe

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• Remarkable work is always not on the list, because if it was, it would be commonplace, not remarkable.

  Seth Godin

  Would Be, Lists, Remarkable

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• To be original is to discover the commonplace of a thousand years--to face at first the sneer that no one would have thought of it, and at last the indifference because any one would.

  Gerald Stanley Lee

  Years, Lasts, Faces

  Gerald Stanley Lee (1896). “The Shadow Christ: An Introduction to Christ Himself”

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• As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances. It is a statement so correct that it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real. Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge. Eloquent silence. In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency. In art, where the spirit of shibumi takes the form of sabi, it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity. In philosophy, where shibumi emerges as wabi, it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming.

  Trevanian

  Spiritual, Art, Real

  Trevanian (2005). “Shibumi: A Novel”, p.77, Broadway Books

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• The presumption of innocence is not just a legal concept. In commonplace terms, it rests on that generosity of spirit which assumes the best, not the worst, of the stranger.

  Kingman Brewster, Jr.

  Presumption Of Innocence, Generosity, Spirit

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