Ordinary Man Quotes - Page 3

• The ordinary man is an anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbour to be governed, but he himself doesn't want to be governed. He is mortally afraid of government officials and policemen.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Men, Want, Likes

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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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• To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that which shows what it might become. America -- this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into the 'yes' -- needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it.

  Cornel West

  Country, Men, America

  FaceBook post by Dr. Cornel West from Mar 24, 2010

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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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• 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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• 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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• An ordinary man will work every day for a year at shoveling dirt to support his body, or a family of bodies; but he is an extraordinary man who will work a whole day in a year for the support of his soul. Even the priests, men of God, so called, for the most part confess that they work for the support of the body.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Years, Support

  Henry David Thoreau (1894). “The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: With Bibliographical Introductions and Full Indexes”

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• It is the object of learning, not only to satisfy the curiosity and perfect the spirits of ordinary men, but also to advance civilization.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Learning, Men, Civilization

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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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• 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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• His thoughts inhabit a different plane from those of ordinary men; the simplest interpretation of that is to call him crazy.

  Juliet Marillier

  Crazy, Men, Ordinary

  Juliet Marillier (2011). “The Dark Mirror”, p.552, Pan Macmillan

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Men, Luxury, Giving

  Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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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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• If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!

  Idries Shah

  Wise, Men, Thinking

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.28, Octagon Press Ltd

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• He was the most ordinary man in all the world, and yet in her memory he'd become luminous, like the prince in a fairy tale.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Memories, Men, Ordinary

  Cheryl Strayed (2014). “Torch”, p.161, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I like the tradition of ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances and how they react to events which force them to be heroic in a way that is not in their natures.

  Rob Lowe

  Men, Way, Events

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

  Mark Twight

  Crush, Men, Challenges

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• Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Beauty, Men, Simplicity

  "Of Personal Merit", Aphorism 17, 1688.

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• It is best for ordinary men to have only one wife !

  Akbar

  Men, Wife, Funny Marriage

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• The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Kings, Men, Ordinary

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