Commonplace Quotes

249 quotes by 221 authors

No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph. — Bill Brandt
Simultaneous discovery is utterly commonplace, and it was only the rarity of scientists, not the inherent improbability of the phenomenon, that made it remarkable in… — Peter Medawar
We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thrusting it into our dreams or surrendering it to the free play of our… — Raoul Vaneigem
We Sioux spend a lot of time thinking about everyday things which in our minds are mixed up with the spiritual. We see in the… — John Fire Lame Deer
Men of genius are not to be analysed by commonplace rules. The rest of us who have been or are leaders, more commonplace in our… — Robert Menzies
Do not try to paint the grandiose thing. Paint the commonplace so that it will be distinguished. — William Merritt Chase
Let us dig our furrow in the fields of the commonplace. — Jean-Henri Fabre
I don't know what people find or like in me, I'm hopelessly commonplace!... Current appreciation of my work is a bit highbrow, I've always considered… — Maxfield Parrish
We attempt to define a person, the most commonplace person we know, but he will not submit to bounds; some unexpected beauty of nature breaks… — Charlotte Mason
Be not content with the common place in character anymore than with the commonplace in ambition or intellectual attainment. Do not expect that you will… — William Jewett Tucker
Youth -- nothing else worth having in the world...and I had youth, the transitory, the fugitive, now, completely and abundantly. Yet what was I going… — Richard Halliburton
The glamour of air travel - its aspirational meaning in the public imagination - disappeared before its luxury did, dissipating as flying gradually became commonplace. — Virginia Postrel
Everything is grounded in mystery. Everything is swimming, and the stable does not exist. Life is a series of guesses, and there is mystery in… — Benjamin De Casseres
The extent of his influence across jazz, across American music, and around the world has such continuing stature that he is one of the few… — Stanley Crouch
Born to an age where horror has become commonplace, where tragedy has, by its monotonous repetition, become a parody of sorrow, we need to fence… — Thomas Boswell
In the most commonplace, tiresome, ridiculous, malicious, coarse, crude, or even crooked people or events I had to seek out rare things, good things, comic… — William Saroyan
Commonplace objects are constantly changingâ€¦ The pies, for example, we now see, are not going to be around forever. We are merely used to the… — Wayne Thiebaud
Do we fear suffering or apathy most? Is it from experience or the monotony of a commonplace existence that we quickest flee? — Anna Katharine Green
Fabricating reality was criminal; editing it, commonplace. — Amy Waldman
Good habits are not made on birthdays, nor Christian character at the new year. The workshop of character is everyday life. The uneventful and commonplace… — Maltbie Davenport Babcock

Who Wrote These Commonplace Quotes

221 authors contributed a total of 249 Commonplace Quotes, led by these top contributors: