Ordinary Things Quotes - Page 2

• Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.

  Jean Vanier

  Love, Mean, Knowing

  Jean Vanier (2010). “Living Gently in a Violent World (Large Print 16pt)”, p.55, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle.

  Frederick Franck

  Art, Drawing, Miracle

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• Successful people do ordinary things with extraordinary consistency, commitment and focus.

  Jon Gordon

  Commitment, Successful, People

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• We bless the life around us far more than we realize. Many simple, ordinary things that we do can affect those around us in profound ways: the unexpected phone call, the brief touch, the willingness to listen generously, the warm smile or wink of recognition. All it may take to restore someone's trust in life may be returning a lost earring or a dropped glove.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Simple, Phones, Profound

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• The test of a man’s religious life and character is not what he does in the exceptional moments of life, but what he does in the ordinary times, when there is nothing tremendous or exciting on. The worth of a man is revealed in his attitude to ordinary things when he is not before the footlights.

  Oswald Chambers

  Religious, Attitude, Character

  Oswald Chambers (1985). “My Utmost for His Highest”

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• We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life - those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength.

  Oswald Chambers

  Beautiful, Inspiration, Sunrise

  Oswald Chambers (2010). “My Utmost for His Highest”, p.568, Discovery House

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• If you want to win, do the ordinary things better than anyone else does them day in and day out.

  Chuck Noll

  Inspirational, Leadership, Sports

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• Bad things do happen in the world, like war, natural disasters, disease. But out of those situations always arise stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

  Daryn Kagan

  War, People, Ordinary

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• Through persistence and hard work, we can each unlock the potential God has given us. We have within us not only the capacity to accomplish great things but also the ability to do ordinary things in extraordinary ways.

  Lloyd D. Newell

  Hard Work, Persistence, Ordinary

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• Modern nature-worship is all upside down. Trees and fields ought to be the ordinary things; terraces and temples ought to be extraordinary. I am on the side of the man who lives in the country and wants to go to London.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Country, Nature, Men

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• What keeps faith cheerful is the extreme persistence of gentleness and humor. Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music, and books, raising kids-all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. Lacking any other purpose in life, it would be good enough to live for their sake.

  Garrison Keillor

  Sports, Sweet, Flower

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• And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lies the error and the blame.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Lying, Men, Errors

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• I don't think that my films are 'literary'; they are based on the most ordinary things of life.

  Eric Rohmer

  Thinking, Ordinary, Film

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• I've grown up in a generation that questions God for setting boundaries. Does He have the right to set boundaries? I've grown up in a generation that thinks where meeting with a God is an ordinary thing.

  Francis Chan

  Leadership, Christian, Thinking

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• I don't think ordinary things are very interesting, so I try to imagine a world that is less ordinary.

  Chris Van Allsburg

  Thinking, Interesting, Trying

  Scholastic Interview, www.scholastic.com. November 10, 2004.

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• The interesting thing is that in everyday life, I fail to see the most ordinary things. I often stumble and sometimes I even fall over. But when I draw or look at a painting, I go into a sort of overdrive and just see things differently than other people.

  Wolfgang Beltracchi

  Fall, People, Interesting

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• Sometimes the most ordinary things are the ones we learn to miss the most.

  Jennifer Chiaverini

  Missing, Ordinary, Sometimes

  Jennifer Chiaverini (2012). “The Quilter's Apprentice: A Novel”, p.108, Simon and Schuster

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• At any rate, girls are differently situated. Having no need of deep scientific knowledge, their education is confined more to the ordinary things of the world, the study of the fine arts, and of the manners and dispositions of people.

  William John Wills

  Girl, Education, Art

  William John Wills (1863). “A Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia: From Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria”, p.71, London : R. Bentley

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• I'm always excited by the unlikely, never by ordinary things.

  David Hockney

  Ordinary, Excited, Unlikely

  "Sunlight, beaches and boys" by Edmund White, www.theguardian.com. September 8, 2006.

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• It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy, just different.

  Cassandra Clare

  Crazy, Ordinary, Different

  Cassandra Clare (2010). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (3 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass”, p.31, Simon and Schuster

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• When you are happy you are ordinary, because to be happy is just to be natural. To be miserable is to become extraordinary. Nothing is special in being happy - trees are happy, birds are happy, animals are happy, children are happy. What is special in that? It is just the usual thing in existence. Existence is made of the stuff called happiness. Just look! - can't you see these trees?...so happy. Can't you see the birds singing?...so happily. Happiness has nothing special in it. Happiness is a very ordinary thing.

  Rajneesh

  Happiness, Children, Animal

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• Man is made of ordinary things, and habit is his nurse.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Men, Nurse, Ordinary

  "Wallenstein" by Friedrich Schiller, translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Act I, sc. iv, 1798.

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• My ideas often come from strong mental images. When I'm observing some relatively ordinary thing, I'll think, "What if...." and out of that brainstorming a story emerges.

  Cassandra Clare

  Strong, Thinking, Ifs And

  "The Last Book of The Mortal Instruments Series Has Arrived, and It's Full of Juicy Lust and Betrayal". Interview with Alexandra Schwartz, www.glamour.com. May 29, 2014.

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• The most ordinary things are to philosophy a source of insoluble puzzles. With infinite ingenuity it constructs a concept of space or time and then finds it absolutely impossible that there be objects in this space or that processes occur during this time . . . the source of this kind of logic lies in excessive confidence in the so-called laws of thought.

  Ludwig Boltzmann

  Time, Philosophy, Lying

  "Ludwig Edward Boltzmann" by S. Rajasekar, September 7, 2006.

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• There is something about the Himalayas not possessed by the Alps, something unseen and unknown, a charm that pervades every hour spent among them, a mystery intriguing and disturbing. Confronted by them, a man loses his grasp of ordinary things, perceiving himself as immortal, an entity capable of outdistancing all changes, all decay, all life, all death.

  Frank Smythe

  Men, Unseen, Ordinary

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