Top 100 Ordinary Men Quotes
#1. After ministering each day to the hundreds of young men who had endured ghastly wounds, submitted to amputations without anesthesia, and often died without the comfort of family or friends, Whitman wrote, nothing of ordinary misfortune seems as it used to.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
#2. That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in. and the best of me is diligence.
William Shakespeare
#3. Now the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men is foreknowledge.
Sun Tzu
#4. Mutants, super beings, gods, aliens, a guy who sticks to walls at one extreme, a creature who eats planets at the other; Each one that comes into being, they feel, diminishes the rest of humanity, ordinary homo sapiens, that little bit more.
Jim Lee
#5. There are no great men, only ordinary men, who have met extraordinary challenges.
William Halsey
#6. Exceptional men do not hold their experiences to be out of the ordinary or of interest to anyone else. Unlike the trodden fungus-men, they are not so ignorantly and presumptuously self-absorbed. They are nobody and they know it. They shun notice. They are exceedingly rare.
Nick Tosches
#7. Beware of singing divine psalms for an ordinary recreation, as do men of impure spirits, who sing holy psalms intermingled with profane ballads: They are God's word: take them not in thy mouth in vain.
Lewis Bayly
#8. Great men are little men expanded; great lives are ordinary lives intensified.
Wilferd Peterson
#9. The primary paradox of Christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#10. Let us remind ourselves that it is ordinary people - men and women, boys and girls - that make the world a special place
Nelson Mandela
#11. Newton was a genius, but not because of the superior computational power of his brain. Newton's genius was, on the contrary, his ability to simplify, idealize, and streamline the world so that it became, in some measure, tractable to the brains of perfectly ordinary men.
Gerald Weinberg
#12. At ordinary times, then, we are perfectly certain that men are not equal. But when, in a democratic country, we think or act politically we are no less certain that men are equal. Or at any rate - which comes to the same thing in practice - we behave as though we were certain of men's equality.
Aldous Huxley
#13. It was the reason he had survived. It was the ordinary way of saying she would refuse all other men. Only you. Come back.
Ian McEwan
#14. An artist is only an ordinary man with a greater potentiality.
D.H. Lawrence
#15. It is almost a sadness to my soul that men should be astonished and surprised at an ordinary, tangible evidence of the power of God.
John G. Lake
#16. Powerful men tire of their toys easily. And the novelty of a pet doesn't last forever. After a while even the prettiest things become ordinary.
Kate Jarvik Birch
#17. Ordinary persons, he said, smiling, found no differences between men. The artist found them all.
Alexander Theroux
#18. Ordinary men died, men of iron were taken prisoner: I only brought back with me men of bronze.
Napoleon Bonaparte
#19. We must help men and women see the epic in the ordinary details of life.
Matt Chandler
#20. For ourselves, who are ordinary men and women, let us return thanks to Nature for her bounty by using every one of the senses she has given us.
Virginia Woolf
#21. I sometimes hear preachers speak of the sad condition of men who live without God in the world, but a scientist who lives without God in the world seems to me worse off than ordinary men.
Louis Agassiz
#22. Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.
Lao-Tzu
#23. I like the tradition of ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances and how they react to events which force them to be heroic in a way that is not in their natures.
Rob Lowe
#24. Great men learn from their weaknesses,
and learn to use their strengths.
Ordinary men learn nothing from their weaknesses,
and underuse their strengths.
Matshona Dhliwayo
#25. Earnest in practicing the ordinary virtues, and careful in speaking about them, if, in his practice, he has anything defective, the superior man dares not but exert himself; and if, in his words, he has any excess, he dares not allow himself such license.
Confucius
#26. The sacrifices ordinary American men and women from communities large and small have been willing to make, often before they were past their teenage years, have secured our nation unprecedented freedoms and made us the world's bulwark of liberty.
Steve Buyer
#27. An ordinary man seeks freedom through enlightenment. An enlightened man expresses freedom through being ordinary.
Adyashanti
#28. Greatness does not approach him who is forever looking down". My eyes are seeing through what the ordinary men call a mirage!
Bayode Ojo
#29. The expression of a man's face is commonly a help to his thoughts, or glossary on his speech; but the countenance of Newman Noggs, in his ordinary moods, was a problem which no stretch of ingenuity could solve.
Charles Dickens
#30. Ordinary men live among marvels and feel no wonder, grow familiar with objects and learn nothing new about them.
George Henry Lewes
#31. But an ordinary day can mark the beginning of an extraordinary journey!
Elizabeth George
#32. The tantalizing discomfort of perplexity is what inspires otherwise ordinary men and women to extraordinary feats of ingenuity and creativity; nothing quite focuses the mind like dissonant details awaiting harmonious resolution.
Brian Greene
#33. The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways.
Tahir Shah
#34. The game of power is played remorselessly by men who have not the slightest knowledge of, or interest in, the way ordinary people live, and the ordinary people are too terrified to protest.
Robert Payne
#35. Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary travelers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path across lots will turn out the higher way of the two.
Henry David Thoreau
#36. Among our own people also the church sorely needs clergy in close touch with the ordinary life of the laity, living the life of ordinary men, sharing their difficulties and understanding their trials by close personal experience.
Roland Allen
#37. While some men see ordinary happenings, others see divine light and guidance.
Thomas Merton
#39. It embarrassed her, as a child, to think that her father had fallen in love, or, if men must love, then it should have been someone else, someone dark, mysterious and profoundly clever, not an ordinary person who was impatient for no reason and cross when one was late for lunch.
Daphne Du Maurier
#40. In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves - the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state.
G.K. Chesterton
#41. The ordinary man's experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary. [He] falls in love or reads Spinoza, and these two experiences have nothing to do with each other, or with the noise of the typewriter, or the smell of cooking; in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes
T. S. Eliot
#42. To be ordinary is not a choice: It is the usual freedom of men without visions.
Thomas Merton
#43. If lying and fabrication are psychologically harmful even in ordinary relations with other men (a sphere where a certain amount of falsification is not uncommon) all falsity is disastrous in any relation with the ground of our own being
Thomas Merton
#45. A small room is enough; a small quantity of food is enough; a few clothes are enough; one lover, a very ordinary man
Rajneesh
#46. This image of herself as a not ordinary women, an image which was trembling now in his eyes, might suddenly disappear. Nothing more difficult to live up to than men's dreams.
Anais Nin
#47. Both men and women who have children as a rule regulate their lives largely with reference to them, and children cause perfectly ordinary men and women to act unselfishly in certain ways, of which perhaps life insurance is the most definite and measurable.
Bertrand Russell
#48. The true poetry of life: the poetry of the commonplace, of the ordinary man, of the plain, toil-worn woman, with their loves and their joys, their sorrows and their griefs.
William Osler
#49. People who don't know any better will always be in the dark because the power lies in the hands of men who take good care that ordinary folk don't understand, in the hands, that is, of the government, of the clerical party, of the capitalists.
Cesare Pavese
#50. Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Thomas Jefferson
#51. The ordinary man is ruined by the flesh lusting against the spirit; the scholar by the spirit lusting too much against the flesh.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
#52. What interests me is the experience of ordinary people. To tell you the truth, although I can repeat certain dates, statistics, and so on, what I am really curious about is what happens to ordinary men, women, and children in extraordinary times.
Jacqueline Winspear
#53. The intellectual ... must try never to forget the arguments of the adversary, or the uncertainty of the future, or the faults of one's own side, or the underlying fraternity of ordinary men everywhere.
Raymond Aron
#54. The ordinary man says in his ignorance, "My religion is the sole religion, my religion is the best." But when his heart is illuminated by the true knowledge, he knows that beyond all the battles of sects and of sectaries presides the one, indivisible, eternal and omnipresent Benediction.
Ramakrishna
#55. They cultivated normality till it stood out of them all over in knobs, like the muscles upon professional strong men, and scarcely looked normal at all. And they talked interminably and loudly. From their bouncing mental health ordinary ill-balanced mortals shrank in alarm.
Dorothy L. Sayers
#56. Heroes are ordinary men and women who dare to see and meet the call of a possibility bigger than themselves. Breakthroughs are created by such heroes, by men and women who will stand for the result while it is only a possibility - people who will act to make possibility real.
Werner Erhard
#57. I am very sorry, but I cannot learn languages. I have tried hard, only to find that men of ordinary capacity can learn Sanskrit in less time that it takes me to buy a German Dictionary
George Bernard Shaw
#58. Great men simplify great principles and make them easily intelligible to ordinary men
Tunku Abdul Rahman
#59. It is the object of learning, not only to satisfy the curiosity and perfect the spirits of ordinary men, but also to advance civilization.
Woodrow Wilson
#60. Men of genius are often considered superstitious, but the fact is, the fineness of their nerve renders them more alive to the supernatural than ordinary men.
Benjamin Haydon
#61. A man will blithely do in politics what he would kick a man downstairs for in ordinary life.
Archibald Primrose
#62. The point is always reached after which the gods no longer share their lives with mortal men and women, they die or wither away or retire ... Now that they've gone, the high drama's over. What remains is ordinary human life.
Salman Rushdie
#63. The mind of an ordinary man is truly near the heart.
Sri Aurobindo
#64. Great men and women are not extraordinary people who do extraordinary things. They are ordinary people who do ordinary things with integrity.
Jayce O'Neal
#65. St. Joseph was an ordinary sort of man on whom God relied to do great things. He did exactly what the Lord wanted him to do, in each and every event that went to make up his life.
Josemaria Escriva
#66. For the rest, he was the same to all men, the fashionable world and the ordinary people. He judged nothing in haste, or without taking account of the cirumstances. He said, 'Let me see how the fault arose.
Victor Hugo
#67. Men trust an ordinary man because they trust themselves. But men trust a great man because they do not trust themselves. And hence the worship of great men always appears in times of weakness and cowardice; we never hear of great men until the time when all other men are small.
G.K. Chesterton
#68. I felt that everything is beautiful, but that which man tries intentionally to make beautiful; that the work of an ordinary bricklayer is more valid than the artwork of all but a very few artists.
Ellsworth Kelly
#69. It is rather astonishing how little practical value scientific knowledge has for ordinary men, how dull and commonplace such of it as has value is, and how its value seems almost to vary inversely to its reputed utility.
G.H. Hardy
#70. Higgins: I'm an ordinary man, who desires nothing more than just an ordinary chance, to live exactly as he likes, and do precisely what he wants. An average man am I, of no eccentric whim, Who likes to live his life, free of strife Doing whatever he thinks is best for him, Well, just an ordinary man
Rex Harrison
#71. When one sees that everything exists as an illusion, one can live in a higher sphere than ordinary man.
Gautama Buddha
#72. Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.
Jean De La Bruyere
#73. The sun flickers through the trees and shines upon the faces of the men lined up on the porches. Soldiers no more, just ordinary men who, by the grace of God, were spared to tell their stories
Nancy B. Brewer
#74. Men who neglect philosophy while busying themselves with ordinary affairs are like the Suitors [in the Odyssey] who desired Penelope but went to bed with her maids.
Gorgias
#75. All that makes a lunatic are the very ordinary ideas of mankind shut up inside a man's head.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine
#76. A wound that'd make an ordinary man unconscious, I won't lose to it. A wound that would kill an ordinary person, I won't lose to it! To face one who is extraordinary, Hawk Eyes - I can't allow myself to be ordinary!
Zoro
#77. The ordinary literary man, even though he be an eminent historian, is ill-fitted to be a mentor in affairs of government. For ...
things are for the most part very simple in books, and in practical life very complex.
Woodrow Wilson
#78. There are no extraordinary men ... just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with.
William Halsey
#79. A great man may not do great things but they do ordinary things greatly.
Mahatma Gandhi
#80. If you had all the resources in the world at your disposal to hire anybody you want who would you hire, ordinary unschooled men (Acts 4:13).
Jonah Books
#81. There is no ordinary run of mankind, there are only individuals who are totally different. And whether a man is naked and black and stands on one foot in Sudan or is clothed in some kind of costume in a bus in England, they are still individuals of entirely different characters.
Evelyn Waugh
#82. He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself, and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women.
Leo Tolstoy
#83. Strong men need strong love, and a soft touch. Once you fall in love with a man like that, there's no going back to ordinary.
Lauren Gilley
#84. We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women.
Carl Jung
#85. Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, singers of songs.
Pam Brown
#86. Art is not tame, and Nature is not wild, in the ordinary sense. A perfect work of man's art would also be wild or natural in a good sense.
Henry David Thoreau
#87. I'm not kidding myself. My voice alone is just an ordinary voice. What people come to see is how I use it. If I stand still while I'm singing, I'm dead, man. I might as well go back to driving a truck.
Elvis Presley
#88. In the case of everything that belongs to the realm of sentiment, religion, politics, morality, the affections, and antipathies, etc. The most eminent men seldom surpass the standard of the most ordinary individuals.
Gustave Le Bon
#89. While few judges or prosecutors would be afraid to exercise their perfectly legitimate discretion in favour of an ordinary man, not to mention a minority group member, most would be terrified to exercise the same discretion for someone politically, financially or socially powerful.
Conrad Black
#90. The test, surely, of a creed is not the ability of those who accept it to announce their faith; its test is its ability to change their behavior in the ordinary round of daily life. Judged by that test, I know no religion that has a moral claim upon the allegiance of men.
Harold Laski
#91. The men flyers have given out the impression that aeroplaning is very perilous work, something that an ordinary mortal should not dream of attempting. But when I saw how easily the man flyers manipulated their machines I said I could fly.
Harriet Quimby
#92. Stripped of its plot, the 'Iliad' is a scattering of names and biographies of ordinary soldiers: men who trip over their shields, lose their courage or miss their wives. In addition to these, there is a cast of anonymous people: the farmers, walkers, mothers, neighbours who inhabit its similes.
Alice Oswald
#93. One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
Elbert Hubbard
#94. All higher motives, ideals, conceptions, sentiments in a man are of no account if they do not come forward to strengthen him for the better discharge of the duties which devolve upon him in the ordinary affairs of life.
Henry Ward Beecher
#95. These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
Who else would soar above the view of men
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.
William Shakespeare
#96. He had heard that women often love plain ordinary men, but he did not believe it, because he judged by himself and he could only love beautiful mysterious exceptional women.
Leo Tolstoy
#97. The holiness of love inspired ordinary men and women to act like angels. It lifted them on wings closer to God.
Nancy Holder
#98. History is no longer just a chronicle of kings and statesmen, of people who wielded power, but of ordinary women and men engaged in manifold tasks. Women's history is an assertion that women have a history.
Toshiko Kishida
#99. There aren't any great men. There are just great challenges that ordinary men like you and me are forced by circumstances to meet.
William Halsey
#100. The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.
Blaise Pascal
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