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Ordinary Quotes

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Ordinary Quotes

“See beauty in those unexpected places. (she asked herself how people could let Bach be background noise.) See the opportunity in what looks like inconvenience. (she steered clear of the traffic jam and went to the bakery she's been meaning to stop at.) She embraces the undeclared possibility in what seems like just another ordinary day. (her friend is scheduled for cancer surgery and suddenly everything around her seems so very precious.)”

“In reality, the likelihood of reaching the pinnacle of capitalist society today is only marginally better than were the chances of being accepted into the French nobility four centuries ago, though at least an aristocratic age was franker, and therefore kinder, about the odds. It did not relentlessly play up the possibilities open to all, and so, in turn, did not cruelly equate an ordinary life with a failed one.”

“When you approach spirituality as an adventure of being alive, you start as you would any adventure--with a sense of mystery and not-knowing. Instead of searching for answers that make you feel safe, you set out into the vastness of life and death, with a willingness to continually grow. You open up to the possibility that your ordinary life is an extraordinary adventure, and that your joys and sorrows have meaning. Spiritual practice becomes your rudder, offering direction and insight and discretion as you venture into the unknown.”

Source: The Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure

“Coming out of the trance of denial is painful. But crises offer us opportunities to rethink our lives. The best thing about despair is that it wakes us up. We can see the world more clearly and open to new possibilities...And we can find new joy in the ordinary.”

World Joy Opportunity Our Lives Possibility Offers Despair Ordinary Crisis Painful Denial Best Things Coming Out Trance New Possibilities

Author:Mary Pipher

“One way of opening ourselves up to new opportunities is to make conscious efforts to look differently at our ordinary situations. Doing so allows a person to see the world as one rife with possibility and to take advantage of some of those possibilities if they seem worth pursuing.”

Ifs World Way Looks Persons Seems Motivational Opportunity Effort Attitude Situation Possibility Ordinary Conscious Advantage Luck Opening One Way New Opportunity

Author:Ken Robinson

“I kind of like the idea of living a rather ordinary life as a shopkeeper, and I examine that possibility as one of the outcomes of the young Gerald Bostock growing older.”

Kind Ideas Young Growing Possibility Ordinary Outcomes Growing Old Ordinary Life Growing Older Shopkeepers

Author:Ian Anderson

“In ordinary life, the phenomenology of embodied emotions is an excellent example for dynamic changes between transparency and opacity: You can "directly perceive" that your wife is cheating you, or you can become aware of the possibility that maybe it is you who has a problem, that your "immediate" emotional representation of social reality might actually be a misrepresentation.”

Problem Reality Might Social Emotion Wife Example Possibility Emotional Ordinary Excellent Perceive Cheating Representation Transparency Ordinary Life Phenomenology Misrepresentation

Author:Thomas Metzinger

“Theologians in all the great faiths have devised all kinds of myths to show that this type of kenosis, of self-emptying, is found in the life of God itself. They do not do this because it sounds edifying, but because this is the way that human nature seems to work. We are most creative and sense other possibilities that transcend our ordinary experience when we leave ourselves behind.”

Way Humans Kind Self Shows Seems Found Sound Behinds Creative Human Nature Possibility Type Ordinary Myth All Kinds Theologian Great Faith

Book:The Spiral Staircase

Source: The Spiral Staircase

“I think fantasy is best described as a kind of fiction that evokes wonder, mystery or magic, a sense of possibility beyond the ordinary world in which we live, and yet which reflects and comments upon that known world.”

Thinking World Kind Fiction Known Wonder Fantasy Magic Mystery Possibility Ordinary Comment Evoke Ordinary World

Author:Kate Forsyth

“What would be frightening about me jumping out of the bush wearing a pig mask is not the sudden surprise, not me, and not the pig mask, but that the ordinary world had split open for a moment to reveal some possibility never previously considered.”

World Moments Would Be Possibility Ordinary Surprise Mask Splits Frightening Pigs Jumping Ordinary World

Author:Peter Straub

“The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far.”

Want Giving Feels Looks Persons Soul Suffering Order Forget Possibility Giving Up Ordinary Deserve Guilt Mere Obstacles Ordinary Person

Book:The Alchemist - 10th Anniversary Edition

Source: The Alchemist - 10th Anniversary Edition