Uncommon Quotes - Page 9

• Success is uncommon, not to be found by the common man. I'm looking for uncommon people.

  Cal Stoll

  Motivation, Men, People

  6 Copy quote

• Humble people can do great things with uncommon perfection because they are no longer concerned about their own interests and their own reputation, and therefore they no longer need to waste their efforts in defending them.

  Thomas Merton

  Humble, Humility, People

  4 Copy quote

• And therein shines one major definition of what it meant to be Clinton D. Powell: someone who looked for, trusted in, and helped empower (if you will) the best in others. It takes a lot of beautiful love, uncommon sincerity, and spitfire courage to do that.

  Aberjhani

  Love, Beautiful, Empowering

  4 Copy quote

• Sport is where an entire life can be compressed into a few hours, where the emotions of a lifetime can be felt on an acre or two of ground, where a person can suffer and die and rise again on six miles of trails through a New York City park. Sport is a theater where sinner can turn saint and a common man become an uncommon hero, where the past and the future can fuse with the present. Sport is singularly able to give us peak experiences where we feel completely one with the world and transcend all conflicts as we finally become our own potential.

  George A. Sheehan

  Sports, New York, Hero

  44 Copy quote

• The man who has learned to do something better than anyone else, has learned to do a common thing in an uncommon manner, is the man who has a power and influence that no adverse circumstances can take from him.

  Booker T. Washington

  Success, Determination, Men

  Booker T. Washington, Louis R. Harlan (1976). “The Booker T. Washington Papers: 1899-1900”, p.384, University of Illinois Press

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• By their victory, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions and other units of the Fifth Amphibious Corps have made an accounting to their country which only history will be able to value fully. Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue.

  Chester W. Nimitz

  Country, Military, Marine

  Chester W. Nimitz's statement after the Battle of Iwo Jima, circa March - May 1945.

  98 Copy quote

  Show source

• Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue.

  Chester W. Nimitz

  Military, War, Marine

  65 Copy quote

• It is not uncommon to charge the difference between promise and performance, between profession and reality, upon deep design and studied deceit; but the truth is, that there is very little hypocrisy in the world.

  Samuel Johnson

  Reality, Differences, Hypocrisy

  Samuel Johnson (1968). “Essays from the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.286, Yale University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers...even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.

  Abraham Maslow

  Giving Up, Selfish, Perfect

  182 Copy quote

• He had an uncommon fondness for cats. As an old man summering in New Hampshire, Twain even rented kittens from a nearby farm to keep him company until he returned home. "If man could be crossed with the cat," said Twain, "it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat." There's always something about your success that displeases even your best friends.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational Life, Cat, Home

  12 Copy quote

• It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.

  Joseph Addison

  Beautiful, Strong, Art

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1854). “The Spectator”, p.306

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Common objects become strangely uncommon when removed from their context and ordinary ways of being seen.

  Wayne Thiebaud

  Ordinary, Way, Common

  48 Copy quote

• Success is the uncommon application of common knowledge

  Ivan Misner

  Common, Application, Common Knowledge

  FaceBook post by Ivan Misner from Nov 12, 2016

  39 Copy quote

  Show source

• The science of the church is neglected for the study of geometry, and they lose sight of Heaven while they are employed in measuring the earth. Euclid is perpetually in their hands. Aristotle and Theophrastus are the objects of their admiration; and they express an uncommon reverence for the works of Galen. Their errors are derived from the abuse of the arts and sciences of the infidels, and they corrupt the simplicity of the gospel by the refinements of human reason.

  Edward Gibbon

  Art, Sight, Hands

  Edward Gibbon (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Edward Gibbon (Illustrated)”, p.594, Delphi Classics

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Common, Efficiency, Combination

  Theodore Roosevelt (2013). “Bully!”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wrote my first play, Uncommon Women and Others, in the hopes of seeing an all-female curtain call in the basement of the Yale School of Drama. A man in the audience stood up during a post show discussion and announced, “I can't get into this, it's all about girls.” I thought to myself, “Well, I've been getting in to Hamlet and Laurence of Arabia my whole life, so you better start trying.”

  Wendy Wasserstein

  Girl, Drama, School

  14 Copy quote

• Even in an advanced stage of civilization, there is always a tendency to prefer those parts of literature which favor ancient prejudices, rather than those which oppose them; and in cases where this tendency is very strong, the only effect of great learning will be to supply the materials which may corroborate old errors and confirm old superstitions. In our time such instances are not uncommon; and we frequently meet with men whose erudition ministers to their ignorance, and who, the more they read the less they know.

  Henry Thomas Buckle

  Strong, Ignorance, Men

  Henry Thomas Buckle (1913). “History of Civilization in England”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have this very moment finished reading a novel called The Vicar of Wakefield [by Oliver Goldsmith].... It appears to me, to be impossible any person could read this book through with a dry eye and yet, I don't much like it.... There is but very little story, the plot is thin, the incidents very rare, the sentiments uncommon, the vicar is contented, humble, pious, virtuous--but upon the whole the book has not at all satisfied my expectations.

  Fanny Burney

  Reading, Book, Eye

  4 Copy quote

• It is not uncommon for ignorant and corrupt men to falsely charge others with doing what they imagine that they themselves, in their narrow minds and experience, would have done under the circumstances of a given case, and the surest check, often the only check, on such perjury, is to recognize the impossibility that men of larger instruction and resources and experience could have been guilty of such conduct.

  John Henrik Clarke

  Men, Justice, Ignorant

  Valdez v. United States, 244 U.S. 432, 450, 1917.

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• As uncommon a thing as true love is, it is yet easier to find than true friendship.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Love, Friendship, True Friend

  5 Copy quote

• Obama's got a great sense of humor, but mainly he has a great thinking presence, which is uncommon. It's hard to imagine being able to do, think over answers and deliver them on television. If I were president I would constantly be spluttering.

  Roy Blount, Jr.

  Thinking, President, Answers

  4 Copy quote

• I imagine you will always be pinched for money, for time, for a place to work. But I think you will do it. And believe me, it is not a new problem. You are in good company...Your touch is the uncommon touch; you will speak only to the thoughtful reader. And more times than once you will ask yourself whether such readers really exist at all and why you should go on projecting your words into silence like an old crazy actor playing the part of himself to an empty theater.

  Wallace Stegner

  Crazy, Believe, Thoughtful

  6 Copy quote

• No matter how efficient school training may be, it would only produce stagnation, orthodoxy, and rigid pedantry if there were no uncommon men pushing forward beyond the wisdom of their tutors.

  Ludwig von Mises

  School, Men, Training

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution: The Economist”, p.187, VM eBooks

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is not uncommon to suppose that the free exchange of property in markets and capitalism are one and the same. They are not. While capitalism operates through the free market, free markets don't require capitalism.

  Jeremy Rifkin

  Free Market, Capitalism, Property

  Jeremy Rifkin (2014). “The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism”, p.39, Palgrave Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• He was a superb military officer but he was also an extraordinarily gifted politician. That he was an unusually open, honest and no-nonsense politician did not make him unsuited for the profession, only uncommon. In uniform and in politics Barry's purpose was always the defense of freedom. And nobody before or since managed the task more ably or more colorfully than Barry Goldwater.

  John McCain

  Military, Tasks, Defense

  "America Says Farewell To Barry Goldwater". www.cnn.com. June 3, 1998.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source