Ordinary Quotes

• If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

  Jim Rohn

  Inspirational, Motivational, Success

  FaceBook post by Jim Rohn from Dec 02, 2016

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• Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

  John W. Gardner

  Inspirational, Success, Uplifting

  93 Copy quote

• Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

  Ezra Pound

  Men, Genius, Literature

  Jefferson and/or Mussolini ch. 23 (1935)

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• One of the most important-and most neglected-elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendour that is all around us.

  Thomas Merton

  Beauty, Reality, Important

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.33, Shambhala Publications

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• I have not led an ordinary life, nor a life that would suit everyone. I took great risks, but because I did, I also earned great reward. I found the way to show my true face freely, without fear. Because of this, I found true love.

  Cameron Dokey

  True Love, Risk, Rewards

  Cameron Dokey (2012). “Once: Before Midnight; Golden; Wild Orchid”, p.408, Simon and Schuster

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• Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love, Life, Crush

  355 Copy quote

• One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Inspirational, Motivational, Strength

  A Thousand and One Epigrams (1911)

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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

  62 Copy quote
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  Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary.

  Gerard Way

  Hero, Extraordinary Person, Ordinary Extraordinary

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• You enter the extraordinary by way of the ordinary

  Frederick Buechner

  Way, Extraordinary

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• Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Money, Real

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• There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

  C. S. Lewis

  Gnats, People, Gods And Goddesses

  C. S. Lewis (2014). “Christian Reflections”, p.11, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• I wouldn't say I'm normal. But I'm relatively stable. When I think of normal, I think of mediocrity, and mediocrity scares the f--- out of me.

  Gillian Anderson

  Thinking, Scare, Mediocrity

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• Any given moment - no matter how casual, how ordinary - is poised, full of gaping life.

  Anne Michaels

  Matter, Moments, Given

  Anne Michaels (2010). “Fugitive Pieces”, p.19, Emblem Editions

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• Do not be grand. Try to get the ordinary into your writing - breakfast tables rather than the solar system; Middletown today, not Mankind through the ages.

  Darcy O'Brien

  Writing, Age, Trying

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• I am an ordinary man who worked hard to develop the talent I was given.

  Muhammad Ali

  Men, Talent, Given

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• Before you've seen it, and when you first see it, it is the greatest thing; afterwards, it is ordinary.

  Gautama Buddha

  Firsts

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• Be content with an ordinary life.

  Laozi

  Ordinary Life

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• I thought the objects we value least because they were ubiquitous were actually the most extraordinary.

  Michael Craig-Martin

  Ubiquity, Perception, Usual

  "Michael Craig-Martin: Up close and impersonal". Interview With Stuart Jeffries, www.theguardian.com. May 4, 2011.

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• Ordinary parties, he thought, were subtle games of sexual and social badminton.

  Annie Proulx

  Party, Games, Social

  Annie Proulx (1994). “The Shipping News”, p.254, Simon and Schuster

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• I can kill with a single word. I can hurl a ball of fire into the midst of my enemies. I rule a squadron of skeletal warriors, who can destroy by touch alone. I can raise a wall of ice to protect those I serve. The invisible is discernible to my eyes. Ordinary magic spells crumble in my presence... But I bow in the presence of a master. -- Lord Soth to Raistlin Majere

  Margaret Weis

  Wall, Eye, Warrior

  Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman (2011). “Time of the Twins: Legends, Volume One”, p.116, Wizards of the Coast

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• Understand this well: there is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it.

  Josemaria Escriva

  Faith, Inspiration, Holy

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• Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way. But if you hold it up against the light of God's goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright. And then you ask yourself in amazement: Is this really my own life I see before me?

  Albert Schweitzer

  Light, Long, Shining

  Albert Schweitzer (1979). “Reverence for Life”, p.40, Ardent Media

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  I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.

  Alice Paul

  Women, Equality, Rights

  "Deeds Not Words" by Bobbie Brinegar, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 12, 2016.

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• You cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

  C. S. Lewis

  Change, Eggs, Goes On

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.181, Simon and Schuster

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