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Average Man Quotes

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Average Man Quotes

“But the instinct of hoarding, like all other instincts, tends to become hypertrophied and perverted; and with the institution of private property comes another institution-that of plunder and brigandage. In private life, no motive of action is at present so powerful and so persistent as acquisitiveness, which unlike most other desires, knows no satiety. The average man is rich enough when he has a little more than he has got, and not till then.”

KnowsMenLittlesEnoughActionDesirePowerfulRichInstitutionsPropertyInstinctAverageMotiveConsumerismPersistentPrivate LifePrivate PropertyOverconsumptionPlunderAverage ManHoardingSatiety
Book:Outspoken essays
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“ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward the straiter [sic] resemblance of the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell.”

MenMatterHellStandardsIndependentStriveAverageConformAbnormalResemblanceAverage ManNormal And AbnormalLexicographer
Book:The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World
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“A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he's finished.”

MenLoveWisdomHumorFunnyWomenLove IsMarriageMarriedHumorousWittyFinishedWeddingIncompleteHusband And WifeFunny MarriageLove And MarriageAverage ManGood MarriageMarried ManBeing IrishMarriage HumorWedding MarriageInspirational MarriageWedding ToastWeddings And MarriageNewlywedsIncompletenessMarriage JokesMarriage And Love InspirationalWitty MarriageFunny IrishWives LoveFunny Wedding ToastWedding PhrasesShort MarriageFunny Husband And Wife
Author:Zsa Zsa Gabor
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“There is a limited elite that understands the secrets of their own techniques, but not necessarily of all techniques. These men are close to the seat of modern governmental power. The state is no longer founded on the 'average citizen', but on the ability and knowledge of this elite. The average man is altogether unable to penetrate technical secrets or governmental organization and consequently can exert no influence at all on the state.”

MenStatesAbilitySecretInfluenceModernCitizensOrganizationAverageTechniqueSeatsElitesPenetrateAverage ManMental Power
Author:Jacques Ellul
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“Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise!”

IfsMenNeedsShouldDoeWarFightingNationsLosesReadySoldierAverageEdgesHarmAriseUnjustWoeAverage ManTime Of NeedThriceUnjust War
Book:History as Literature and Other Essays
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“Had there been any existent vital and energetic institution left in Society after the Reformation for the use of small property in coordinated form-that is, in combination, so that the average man's holding could be put to useful purpose in company with the holdings of a great number of other men of his own sort, the new evils would not have arisen.”

MenUseWisdomFormPurposeEvilPoliticsLeftNumbersCompanyEconomyInstitutionsPropertyAverageCombinationLiberalismReformationEnergeticAverage Man
Book:The Crisis Of Civilization
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“In the turbulence of this anxious and active world many people are leading uneventful, lonely lives. To them dreariness, not disaster, is the enemy. They seldom realize that on their steadfastness, on their ability to withstand the fatigue of dull repetitive work, and on their courage in meeting constant small adversities depend in great measure the happiness and prosperity of the community as a whole. ... The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.”

PeopleMenWorldHeartLongWholeRunningCoursesNationsRealizingCommunityAbilityEnemyDependsMen And WomenLonelyAdversityConstantMeetingsAverageProsperityActiveDuesDisasterDullAnxiousLong RunsFatigueAverage ManRepetitiveTurbulenceSteadfastnessOrdinarinessSoundnessLonely Life
Author:Queen Elizabeth II
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“I think we need to find a way to provide people with a reason that the average man on the street can grasp and embrace, that would cause him to move away from the centuries-old idea of the individual and individualism, and move toward a different concept of what it means to be human in a collective society. Unless he has that reason, unless he has a fundamental reason to do that, it's going to be very difficult to cause him to make that shift, in my view.”

PeopleThinkingMenWayNeedsHumansMeanIdeasDifferentReasonMovingIndividualCausesDifficultViewsStreetsCenturyConceptsFundamentalsEmbraceAverageCollectivesIndividualismAverage ManOld IdeasWhat It Means To Be Human
Author:Neale Donald Walsch
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“There is a strong conservative instinct in the average man or woman, born of the hereditary fear of life, that prompts them to cling to old standards, or, if too intelligent to look inhospitably upon progress, to move very slowly. Both types are the brakes and wheelhorses necessary to a stable civilization, but history, even current history in the newspapers, would be dull reading if there were no adventurous spirits willing to do battle for new ideas.”

IfsMenLooksIdeasWould BeMovingSpiritReadingStrongBornProgressWillingTypeCivilizationBattleStandardsIntelligentInstinctAverageConservativeCurrentsNewspapersResistanceDullStableNew IdeasStatus QuoAdventurousPromptsAverage ManBrakeHereditaryFears Of LifeAdventurous Spirit
Author:Gertrude Atherton
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“The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority; it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind; it is the appeaser's intellectual abdication that invites them to take over. When a culture's dominant trend is geared to irrationality, the thugs win over the appeasers. When intellectual leaders fail to foster the best in the mixed, unformed, vacillating character of people at large, the thugs are sure to bring out the worst. When the ablest men turn into cowards, the average men turn into brutes.”

PeopleMenCharacterTurnsCultureEvilWinningLeaderFailingWorstMankindIntellectualAverageMinoritiesCowardTrendsInvitesDominantBrutesThugAverage ManIrrationalityEvil ManAbdication
Book:The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
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“Vegetables contain more nutriment than an equal amount of dead flesh. This will sound a surprising and incredible statement to many people, because they have been brought up to believe that they cannot exist unless they defile themselves with flesh, and this delusion is so widely spread that it is difficult to awaken the average man from it.”

PeopleMenBelieveHas BeensDifficultSoundAmountEqualIncrediblesAverageSpreadFleshStatementsDelusionVegetablesSurprisingVegetarianismAverage Man
Book:Some Glimpses of Occultism: Ancient and Modern
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“In the popular arena, one can tell ... that the average man ... imagines that an industrious acquisition of particulars will render him a man of knowledge. With what pathetic trust does he recite his facts! He has been told that knowledge is power, and knowledge consists of a great many small things.”

MenDoeHas BeensFactsImagineAverageGreat MenImagine ThatArenaSmall ThingsPatheticAcquisitionAverage ManIndustriousKnowledge Is Power
Book:Ideas Have Consequences
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“After reading ... accounts ... of minor accidents of light, it is little wonder that the average man would far rather watch someone else fly and read of the narrow escapes from death when some pilot has had a forced landing or a blowout, than to ride himself. Even in the postwar days of now obsolete equipment, nearly all of the serious accidents were caused by inexperienced pilots who where then allowed to fly or attempt to fly-without license or restrictions about anything they could coax into the air.”

MenLittlesLightReadingWonderWatchesAirSeriousAccountsSafetyAverageAccidentsAviationPilotsMinorsEquipmentLicenseRestrictionObsoleteLandingAverage ManBlowouts
Author:Charles Lindbergh
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“The stupidity of the average man will permit the oligarch, whether economic or political, to hide his real purposes from the scrutiny of his fellows and to withdraw his activities from effective control. Since it is impossible to count on enough moral goodwill among those who possess irresponsible power to sacrifice it for the good of the whole, it must be destroyed by coercive methods and these will always run the peril of introducing new forms of injustice in place of those abolished.”

MenRealEnoughWholeRunningFormPoliticalPurposeMoralImpossibleSacrificeEconomicActivityMethodFellowsInjusticeAverageStupidityDestroyedPermitIntroducingPerilIrresponsibleGoodwillScrutinyAverage ManIntroducing New
Book:Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics
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“The average man is what his environment and his superstitions have made him; and their function is to make him an ass. He can't add up three or four new circumstances together and perceive what they mean; it is beyond him. He is not capable of observing for himself; he has to get everything at second-hand. If what are miscalled the lower animals were as silly as man is, they would all perish from the earth in a year.”

IfsMenYearsMeanMadeHandsEarthTogetherThreeAnimalEnvironmentFourCircumstancesCapableFunctionAddAverageSillyAssPerceiveSuperstitionsObservingAverage ManSecond Hand
Book:In defense of Harriet Shelley
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“We are more gullible and superstitious today than we were in the Middle Ages, and an example of modern credulity is the widespread belief that the Earth is round. The average man can advance not a single reason for thinking that the Earth is round. He merely swallows this theory because there is something about it that appeals to the twentieth century mentality.”

ThinkingMenReasonAgeTodayEarthBeliefModernMiddleCenturyExampleTheoryRoundsAverageAppealsMentalityMiddle AgesTwentieth CenturySuperstitiousCredulityAverage ManGullibleRound Earth
Author:George Bernard Shaw
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“August [Wilson] elevates in us is the average man in a way that is heroic and real and human. What you do is you sit with our pathology, you invest in our humanity. We're not walking around like walking symbols like we mean something larger. We're just moving throughout our lives and that's the power of the piece. That's revolutionary.”

MenWayHumansMeanRealMovingHumanityPiecesOur LivesWalkingAverageSymbolsRevolutionaryHeroicAugustWilsonAverage ManPathology
Author:Viola Davis
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