A common man marvels at uncommon things. A wise man marvels at the commonplace.
To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity.
We do not need to plan or devise a "world of the future"; if we take care of the world of the present, the future will have received full justice from us. A good future is implicit in the soils, forests, grasslands, marshes, deserts, mountains, river...
Once the creator was removed from the creation, divinity became only a remote abstraction, a social weapon in the hands of the religious institutions. This split in public values produced or was accompanied by, as it was bound to be, an equally artif...
But even in the much-publicized rebellion of the young against the materialism of the affluent society, the consumer mentality is too often still intact: the standards of behavior are still those of kind and quantity, the security sought is still the...
...we begin to understand marriage as the insistently practical union that it is. We begin to understand it, that is, as it is represented in the traditional marriage ceremony, those vows being only a more circumstantial and practical way of saying w...
As readers, we remain in the nursery stage so long as we cannot distinguish between taste and judgment, so long, that is, as the only possible verdicts we can pass on a book are two: this I like; this I don't like. For an adult reader, the possible v...
...when I chose you, I didn't want the commonplace - I didn't want a 'partner' - I wanted a shrine...
Most remarks that are worth making are commonplace remarks. The things that makes them worth saying is that we really mean them.
The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.
When I was growing up and watching 'The Sweeney,' the notion of police officers being an inch away from the villains that they're chasing was commonplace.
The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes.
I have been in teen shows for years, so doing that stuff - kissing - is kind of commonplace and not a big deal. It was way more cool just because it was Meg Ryan.
To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.
It's become relatively commonplace to find corners of Africa that have good cell coverage but no electrical power.
I always find it kind of embarrassing, kind of funny, and kind of exciting. In New York I'm recognized a lot, although nobody says anything. You know, they stare at you just a second too long. But in Paris it's not as commonplace to be recognized.
The man who puts life into an idea is acclaimed a genius, because he does the right thing at the right time. Therein lies the difference between the genius and a commonplace man.
Reddit names are unconnected to real-world identities and it's commonplace for users to create 'throwaway' accounts to reveal sensitive information.
The concept of 'different' confines to nothing but mobility. We can be both commonplace and unique depending on the ground we occupy and the people we engage with.
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.
In academia, I discovered that issues and insights, commonplace among the scholars, are viewed as highly controversial and even as 'heresy' in the churches.
