Ordinary Man Quotes - Page 7

• All men are ordinary men; the extraordinary men are those who know it.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Ordinary, Knows

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• Our civilization has decided that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Funny, Humorous, Men

  Tremendous Trifles "The Twelve Men" (1909)

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• Great men are ordinary men with extra ordinary determination.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Determination, Men, Ordinary

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• The ordinary man is ruined by the flesh lusting against the spirit; the scholar by the spirit lusting too much against the flesh.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Men, Lust, Ordinary

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• Like the bat, the Sufi is asleep to 'things of the day' - the familiar struggle for existence which the ordinary man finds all-important - and vigilant while others are asleep. In other words, he keeps awake the spiritual attention dormant in others. That 'mankind sleeps in a nightmare of unfulfillment' is a commonplace of Sufi literature

  Idries Shah

  Spiritual, Struggle, Sleep

  Idries Shah (1964). “The Sufis”, Anchor Books

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• Exalted Manna, gladness of the best, Heaven in ordinary, man well drest.

  George Herbert

  Men, Heaven, Ordinary

  'Prayer: Prayer the Church's banquet' (1633)

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• It is rather astonishing how little practical value scientific knowledge has for ordinary men, how dull and commonplace such of it as has value is, and how its value seems almost to vary inversely to its reputed utility.

  G. H. Hardy

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  G. H. Hardy (1992). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.117, Cambridge University Press

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• Fortunately we have learnt to combine these ideas, not in the mutual toleration of sub-contraries, but in the affirmation of contraries, that transcending of the laws of intellect which is madness in the ordinary man, genius in the Overman who hath arrived to strike off more fetters from our understanding.

  Aleister Crowley

  Men, Law, Ideas

  Aleister Crowley (1970). “777 revised: vel, Prolegomena symbolica ad systemam sceptico-mysticae viae explicandae, fundamentum hieroglyphicum sanctissimorum scientiae summae”, Weiser Books

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• No girl who is going to marry need bother to win a college degree; she just naturally becomes a "Master of Arts" and a "Doctor of Philosophy" after catering to an ordinary man for a few years.

  Helen Rowland

  Girl, Art, Philosophy

  Helen Rowland (2017). “A Guide to Men: Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl”, p.22, Litres

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• When it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Law, Wish

  Tremendous Trifles "The Twelve Men" (1909)

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• An ordinary man seeks freedom through enlightenment. An enlightened man expresses freedom through being ordinary.

  Adyashanti

  Freedom, Men, Ordinary

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• In the eyes of authority - and maybe rightly so - nothing looks more like a terrorist than the ordinary man.

  Giorgio Agamben

  Eye, Men, Ordinary

  Giorgio Agamben (2009). “What is an Apparatus?: And Other Essays”, p.35, Stanford University Press

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• We walk, and our religion is shown even to the dullest and most insensitive person in how we walk. Or to put it more accurately, living in this world means choosing, choosing to walk, and the way we choose to walk is infallibly and perfectly expressed in the walk itself. Nothing can disguise it. The walk of an ordinary man and of an enlightened man are as different as that of a snake and a giraffe.

  Reginald Horace Blyth

  Mean, Men, Snakes

  Reginald Horace Blyth (1948). “Zen in English literature and oriental classics”

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• Great men simplify great principles and make them easily intelligible to ordinary men

  Tunku Abdul Rahman

  Men, Principles, Ordinary

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• Ordinary men commonly condemn what is beyond them.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Men, Ordinary

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• Nations are not truly great solely because the individuals composing them are numerous, free, and active; but they are great when these numbers, this freedom, and this activity are employed in the service of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary man taken by himself.

  Matthew Arnold

  Taken, Men, Numbers

  "Democracy" (1861)

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• The psychical condition of men's minds may be compared with a set of bells close together, and so arranged that in the ordinary man a bell rings only when one beside it sounds, and the vibration lasts only a moment. In the genius, when a bell sounds it vibrates so strongly that it sets in action the whole series, and remains in action throughout life. The latter kind of movement often gives rise to extraordinary conditions and absurd impulses, that may last for weeks together and that form the basis of the supposed kinship of genius with insanity.

  Otto Weininger

  Men, Giving, Insanity

  "Sex and Character" by Otto Weininger, (pp. 122-123), 1906.

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• For the ordinary man, whose mind is a checkerboard of criss-crossing reflections, opinions, and prejudices, bare attention is virtually impossible.

  Philip Kapleau

  Reflection, Men, Mind

  Philip Kapleau (1970). “The three pillars of Zen: teaching, practice, and enlightenment”, Beacon Press (MA)

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• Surrender your will to Him. Unconditionally. Withhold nothing. Turn it all over to Him; all of your desires, wishes, dreams and hopes. Trust in Him. Trust Him who knows all things. Trust Him who has all power. Trust Him whose love for you is perfect. Trust Him, who alone suffered, paid, and atoned for you sins, and for your weaknesses as well. Trust Him that He will make of you immeasurably more than what you will ever, ever, in all eternity make of yourself. He will create of you a masterpiece. You will create of you only a smudge. You will create an ordinary man. He will create a God.

  Lawrence E. Corbridge

  Dream, Men, Perfect

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• The great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Art, Men, Use

  Ernest Hemingway (2014). “The Hemingway Collection”, p.2248, Simon and Schuster

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• Ordinary men died, men of iron were taken prisoner: I only brought back with me men of bronze.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Taken, Army, Men

  "Napoleon's Cavalry and its Leaders". Book by David Johnson, 1978.

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• I don’t think there is any such thing as an ordinary mortal. Everybody has his own possibility of rapture in the experience of life. All he has to do is recognize it and then cultivate it and get going with it. I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I’ve never met an ordinary man, woman, or child.

  Joseph Campbell

  Life, Children, Women

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

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• What changed these very ordinary men (who were such cowards that they did not dare stand too near the cross in case they got involved) into heroes who would stop at nothing? A swindle? Hallucination? Spooky nonsense in a darkened room? Or Somebody quietly doing what He said He'd do - walk right through death? What do you think?

  John Bertram Phillips

  Christian, Prayer, Hero

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• The Tao gives birth to One. One gives birth to Two. Two gives birth to Three. Three gives birth to all things. All things have their backs to the female and stand facing the male. When male and female combine, all things achieve harmony. Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.

  Laozi

  Hate, Men, Two

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• Choice word and measured phrase above the reach Of ordinary men.

  William Wordsworth

  Men, Choices, Ordinary

  'Resolution and Independence' (1807) st. 14

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