Ordinary Man Quotes - Page 2

• Everything has two aspects: the current aspect, which we see nearly always and which ordinary men see, and the ghostly and metaphysical aspect, which only rare individuals may see in moments of clairvoyance and metaphysical abstraction.

  Giorgio de Chirico

  Men, Two, Ordinary

  "Artists on Art - from the 14th - 20th centuries" edited by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, London, (p. 440), 1972.

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• There seems no intrinsic reason why everyone shouldn't be (self-actualising). Apparently every baby has possibilities for self-actualisation, but most get it knocked out of them ...I think of the self-actualising man not as an ordinary man with something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing taken away.

  Abraham Maslow

  Baby, Taken, Men

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• A clown needn't be the same out of the ring as he has to be when he's in it. If you look at photographs of clowns when they're just being ordinary men, they've got quite sad faces.

  Enid Blyton

  Men, Acting, Ordinary

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• There is no other Parliament like the English. For the ordinary man, elected to any senate, from Perisa to Peru, they may be a certain satisfaction in being elected... but the man who steps into the English Parliament takes his place in a pageant that has ever been filing by since the birth of English history... York or Lancaster, Protestant or Catholic, Court or Country, Roundhead or Cavalier, Whig or Tory, Liberal or Conservative, Labour or Unionist, they all fit into that long pageant that no other country in the world can show.

  Josiah Wedgwood

  Country, Men, English History

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• A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting... Thus a man of knowledge sweats and puffs and if one looks at him he is just like an ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under his control.

  Carlos Castaneda

  Knowledge, Men, Thinking

  "Separate Reality: Conversations With Don Juan". Book by Carlos Castaneda, p. 85, 1971.

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• As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

  Bertrand Russell

  Atheist, Men, Thinking

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.91, Psychology Press

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• Patience is a godly attribute that can heal souls, unlock treasures of knowledge and understanding, and transform ordinary men and women into saints and angels. Patience is truly a fruit of the Spirit. Patience means staying with something until the end. It means delaying immediate gratification for future blessings.

  Dieter F. Uchtdorf

  Mean, Angel, Godly

  "Continue in Patience". Dieter F. Uchtdorf's address at the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, www.lds.org. April 2010.

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• Relish the challenge of overcoming difficulties that would crush ordinary men...learn to suffer.

  Mark Twight

  Crush, Men, Challenges

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• But alas, the most terrifying aspect of the whole fascist episode is the dark fact that most of its poisons are generated not by evil men or evil peoples, but by quite ordinary men in search of an answer to the baffling problems that beset every society.

  John T. Flynn

  Dark, Men, Evil

  "As We Go Marching".

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• What ordinary men are directly aware of and what they try to do are bounded by the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their powers are limited.

  C. Wright Mills

  Men, Vision, Trying

  C. Wright Mills (2000). “The Sociological Imagination”, p.3, Oxford University Press

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• An artist is only an ordinary man with a greater potentiality.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Men, Artist, Ordinary

  D. H. Lawrence, George J. Zytaruk, James T. Boulton (2002). “The Letters of D. H. Lawrence”, p.95, Cambridge University Press

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• It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist for example Vincent Van Gogh, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man. If he is more than a popular story-teller it may take humanity a generation to absorb and grow accustomed to the new geography with which the scientist or artist presents us. Even then, perhaps only the more imaginative and literate may accept him. Subconsciously the genius is feared as an image breaker; frequently he does not accept the opinions of the mass, or man's opinion of himself.

  Loren Eiseley

  Art, Men, Humanity

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• War, the ordinary man's most convenient means of escaping from the ordinary.

  Philip Caputo

  War, Mean, Marine

  Philip Caputo (2014). “A Rumor of War”, p.6, Macmillan

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• This inability to think created the possibility for many ordinary men to commit evil deeds on a gigantic scale, the like of which had never been seen before. The manifestation of the wind of thought is not knowledge but the ability to tell right from wrong, beautiful from ugly. And I hope that thinking gives people the strength to prevent catastrophes in these rare moments when the chips are down.

  Hannah Arendt

  Beautiful, Men, Thinking

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• The difference between a great soul and an ordinary man is this: the latter weeps while leaving this body, whereas the former laughs. Death seems to him a mere play.

  Sarada Devi

  Men, Play, Differences

  Sarada Devi (1984). “The Gospel of the Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi”

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• I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I've never met an ordinary man, woman or child.

  Joseph Campbell

  Inspirational, Children, Men

  Joseph Campbell, Bill D. Moyers (1988). “The Power of Myth”, Harmony

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• The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.

  Carlos Castaneda

  Positive, Attitude, Warrior

  Carlos Castaneda (2013). “Tales of Power”, p.106, Simon and Schuster

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• The ordinary man is the curse of civilization.

  John Fowles

  Men, Civilization, Ordinary

  John Fowles (1963). “The collector”

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• Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind, because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science.

  Sigmund Freud

  Knowledge, Men, Poetry

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• For the most part, it is true, ordinary men and women regard mathematics with energetic distaste, counting its concepts as rhapsodic as cauliflower. This is a mistake-there is no other word. Where else can the restless human mind find means to tie the infinite in a finite bow?

  David Berlinski

  Mistake, Mean, Men

  David Berlinski (2000). “The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World”, Houghton Mifflin

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• Without my airplane I am an ordinary man, and a useless one - a trainer without a horse, a sculptor without marble, a priest without a god. Without an airplane I am a lonely consumer of hamburgers.

  Richard Bach

  Lonely, Horse, Airplane

  Richard Bach (2003). “Flying: The Aviation Trilogy”, p.24, Simon and Schuster

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• The worst misfortune that can happen to an ordinary man is to have an extraordinary father.

  Austin O'Malley

  Inspirational, Fathers Day, Dad

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• It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession

  Thomas Hardy

  Husband, Men, Wife

  Thomas Hardy (2016). “FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (British Classics Series): Historical Romance Novel”, p.127, e-artnow

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• The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Family, Christian, Prayer

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• The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript.

  Aleister Crowley

  Men, Illiterate Person, Greek

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