Commonplace Quotes

• 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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• 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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• 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; 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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• 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.

  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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Found objects, chance creations, ready-mades (mass-produced items promoted into art objects, such as Duchamp's "Fountain"-urinal as sculpture) abolish the separation between art and life. The commonplace is miraculous if rightly seen.

  Charles Simic

  Art, Found Objects, Sculpture

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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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• In today’s interconnected and globalized world, it is now commonplace for people of dissimilar world views, faiths and races to live side by side. It is a matter of great urgency, therefore, that we find ways to cooperate with one another in a spirit of mutual acceptance and respect.

  Dalai Lama

  Respect, Buddhist, Buddhism

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• 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

  Appreciation, Artist, People

  Maxfield Parrish, Alma Gilbert-Smith, Joyce Stoner, Trust for Museum Exhibitions (2005). “Maxfield Parrish: master of make-believe”, Philip Wilson Publishers

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• Let us dig our furrow in the fields of the commonplace.

  Jean-Henri Fabre

  Fields, Corny

  Jean-Henri Fabre, Alexander Teixeira De Mattos (2000). “The Life of the Fly”, p.175, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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• Do not try to paint the grandiose thing. Paint the commonplace so that it will be distinguished.

  William Merritt Chase

  Trying, Paint, Distinguished

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• Men of genius are not to be analysed by commonplace rules. The rest of us who have been or are leaders, more commonplace in our quality, will do well to remember two things. One is never to forget posterity when devising a policy. The other is never to think of posterity when making a speech.

  Robert Menzies

  Men, Thinking, Two

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• We Sioux spend a lot of time thinking about everyday things which in our minds are mixed up with the spiritual. We see in the world around us many symbols that teach us the meaning of life. We have a saying that the white man sees so little, he must see with only one eye. We see a lot that you no longer notice. You could notice if you wanted to, but you are usually too busy. We Indians live in a world of symbols and images where the spiritual and commonplace are one…We try to understand them not with the head but with the heart

  John Fire Lame Deer

  Spiritual, Heart, Eye

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• We attempt to define a person, the most commonplace person we know, but he will not submit to bounds; some unexpected beauty of nature breaks out; we find he is not what we thought, and begin to suspect that every person exceeds our power of measurement.

  Charlotte Mason

  Break Out, Measurement, Unexpected

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• Be not content with the common place in character anymore than with the commonplace in ambition or intellectual attainment. Do not expect that you will make any lasting or very strong impression on the world through intellectual power without the use of an equal amount of conscience and heart.

  William Jewett Tucker

  Strong, Heart, Ambition

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• Youth -- nothing else worth having in the world...and I had youth, the transitory, the fugitive, now, completely and abundantly. Yet what was I going to do with it? Certainly not squander its gold on the commonplace quest for riches and respectability, and then secretly lament the price that had to be paid for these futile ideals. Let those who wish have their respectability -- I wanted freedom, freedom to indulge in whatever caprice struck my fancy, freedom to search in the farthermost corners of the earth for the beautiful, the joyous and the romantic.

  Richard Halliburton

  Beautiful, Indulge In, Wish

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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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