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Ordinary Quotes

“Often vastly more important, international agreements are not routinely published in draft form or publicly debated, and civil society organizations and ordinary citizens often learn of important global institutional design decisions only after they have already been finalized and adopted. The only reliable way to be kept informed and to exert timely influence is by lobbying and paying the politicians and their negotiators.”

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Author:Thomas Pogge
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“You've got a generation of young men - almost all are young men - in situations of great economic hardship, where they don't really have work. The chances of them making a decent life for themselves, of making a family, living in a kind of decent, happy way, are very, very remote. It's very hard for them to ever even have that as a dream, so when people are that deprived of the ordinary hope of human beings, it creates anger. And that anger can be channeled by unscrupulous persons, whether secular or religious leaders, and there's been a lot of that.”

PeopleMenWayHumansKindPersonsHardDreamYoungReligiousChanceHuman BeingsSituationLeaderGenerationsEconomicOrdinaryYoung ManDecentHardshipSecularDeprivedReligious LeadersDecent Life
Author:Salman Rushdie
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“King's response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a reevaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens.”

PeopleThinkingWayValuesRevolutionKingsCitizensOrdinaryTransformationCrisisFundamentalsResponseEverydayPrioritiesOne WordWay Of ThinkingPublic LifeTransfersOrdinary Citizens
Author:Cornel West
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“I would imagine that anyone picking up a book written by me would expect a fast-paced story that requires minimal effort to turn the pages. The reader would also be looking for some out-of-the-ordinary revelations along the way. At the end of the day, I'm a writer who simply loves revealing stuff that is out-of-the-ordinary.”

WayBookEndsStoriesTurnsStuffEffortImagineWrittenReaderPagesOrdinaryRevelationsThe End Of The DayImagine ThatRevealingFast PacedSimply LoveMinimal Effort
Author:Ashwin Sanghi
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“To travel a circle is to journey over the same ground time and time again. To travel a circle wisely is to journey over the same ground for the first time. In this way, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the circle, a path to where you wish to be. And when you notice at last that the path has circled back into itself, you realize that where you wish to be is where you have already been ... and always were.”

WayWantInspirationalFirstsLastsTimeWishRealizingPathWiseJourneyPerspectiveTravelOrdinaryFirst TimeExtraordinaryCirclesPathwaysNoticingConversations With GodFull Circle
Author:Neale Donald Walsch
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“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

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Author:Douglas Adams
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“Our spirits have their own private way of understanding each other, of becoming intimate, while our external persons are still trapped in the commerce of ordinary words, in the slavery of social rules. Souls have their own needs and their own ambitions, which the body ignores when it sees that it's impossible to satisfy them or achieve them.”

WayNeedsPersonsStillsSoulBodySpiritSocialUnderstandingImpossibleAchieveBecomingAmbitionOrdinarySlaveryIntimateTrappedCommerceUnderstanding Each Other
Book:The late Mattia Pascal
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“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”

WayLoveLifeBelievePersonsArtI CanReasonFeelingsRealityCreativityWallLetting GoOrdinaryStrongerOne WayEcstasyImpressMarvelousCan NotThirstyOrdinary LifeIntoxicationShacklesMarvelous Things
Author:Anais Nin
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“We're nothing if we're not loved. When you meet somebody who is more important to you than yourself, that has to be the most important thing in life, really. And I think we are all striving for it in different ways. I also believe very, very strongly that everybody is the hero/heroine of his/her own life. I try to make my characters kind of ordinary, somebody that anybody could be. Because we've all had loves, perhaps love and loss, people can relate to my characters”

PeopleIfsThinkingWayTryingBelieveKindImportantDifferentCharacterLossHeroOrdinaryImportant ThingsStriveRelateDifferent WaysThings In LifeHeroinesLove And LossMost Important Things In LifePerhaps Love
Author:Maeve Binchy
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“There in the city's steam-and-smoke-smudged harbor is the most extraordinary sight of all: a great copper-clad lady with a torch in one hand and a book in the other. It is not a statesman or a god or a war hero who welcomes us to this new world. It is but an ordinary woman lighting the way- a lady offering us the liberty to pursue our dreams if we've the courage to begin.”

IfsWorldWayBookWarDreamHandsCitiesLibertyHeroOrdinarySightExtraordinaryPursueSmokeNew WorldOfferingOur DreamsHarborsLightingStatesmenSteamTorchesCopperWar Hero
Book:The Sweet Far Thing
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“The distance runner is mysteriously reconciling the separations of body and mind, of pain and pleasure, of the conscious and the unconscious. He is repairing the rent, and healing the wound in his divided self. He has found a way to make the ordinary extraordinary; the commonplace unique; the everyday eternal.”

WayMindSelfBodyPainFoundPleasureHealingEternalUniqueOrdinaryConsciousDistanceExtraordinaryEverydayWoundsSeparationUnconsciousDividedRunnersMind And BodyCommonplacePain And PleasureDistance RunnerRepairingOrdinary Extraordinary
Book:Dr. George Sheehan on getting fit & feeling great
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“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.”

WayHumansKindSelfShowsSeemsFoundSoundBehindsCreativeHuman NaturePossibilityTypeOrdinaryMythAll KindsTheologianGreat Faith
Book:The Spiral Staircase
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“I sing of a woman with ink on her hands and pictures hidden beneath her hair. I sing of a dog with skin like velvet pushed the wrong way.I sing of the shape a fallen body makes in the dirt beneath a tree, and I sing of an ordinary man who is wanted to know things no human being could tell him.This is the true beginning.”

KnowsMenWayHumansBodyHandsWantedHuman BeingsTreeDogHairShapesOrdinarySkinsFallenDirtInkWrong WayVelvetOrdinary Man
Book:The Dogs of Babel
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“Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man seven different ways with her bare hands, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl.”

ThinkingMenWayIdeasDifferentHandsGirlLanguageBoysCapableOrdinarySevenKillingNo IdeaDifferent WaysFourteenFluentKilling A ManOrdinary Girl
Book:I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You
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“I just remember their kindness and goodness to me, and their peacefulness and their utter simplicity. They inspired real reverence, and I think, in a way, they were certainly saints. And they were saints in that most effective and telling way: sanctified by leading ordinary lives in a completely supernatural manner, sanctified by obscurity, by usual skills, by common tasks, by routine, but skills, tasks, routine which received a supernatural form from grace within.”

ThinkingWayRealRememberFormCommonKindnessGraceSkillsGoodnessOrdinaryTasksInspiredSimplicitySaintRoutineUsualReverenceObscurityOrdinary LifePeacefulness
Author:Thomas Merton
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“One of those out-of-the-ordinary days that made sense of the slew of ordinary days. New York had a way of doing that. Every now and then the city shook its soul out. It assailed you with an image, or a day, or a crime, or a terror, or a beauty so difficult to wrap your mind around that you had to shake your head in disbelief.”

WayMindMadeSoulDifficultCitiesCrimeNew YorkOrdinaryTerrorShakesNow And ThenWrapsDisbeliefOrdinary Days
Book:Let The Great World Spin
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“I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care for.”

IfsMenWayShouldTryingKindMayMeanSometimesEnoughCareSpiritLyingLevelsProveAmbitionOrdinaryAimDareGenerousOver ItAmbitiousI CareUsefulnessGood ServiceGenerous Spirit
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)
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“There is a light in this world, a healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometimes lose sight of this force when there is suffering, too much pain. Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways.”

PeopleWorldWayMaySometimesLightPainSpiritSufferingForceLosesAnswersPowerfulHealingDarknessToo MuchThis WorldOrdinarySightExtraordinaryEncountersOrdinary People
Author:Mother Teresa
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“Crank, You See isn't any ordinary monster. It's like a giant octopus, weaving its tentacles not just around you, but through you, squeezing not hard enough to kill you, but enough to keep you from reeling until you try to get away. Try, and you hunger for it grasping clutch, the way its tendrils prop you up, your need intensifying exponentially every minute you refuse to admit its being (p.469)”

WayNeedsTryingHardEnoughMinutesOrdinaryHungerRefuseMonstersGiantsGet AwayPropsGraspingClutchWeavingCrankSqueezingOctopusTentacles
Book:Ellen Hopkins: Crank Trilogy
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“Clary, you're an artist, like your mother. That means you see the world in ways that other people don't. It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy — just different. There's nothing wrong with being different.”

PeopleWorldWayMeanDifferentMotherArtistCrazyHorrorOrdinaryBeing DifferentOrdinary Things
Book:Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls
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“Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.”

PeopleWayLifeInspirationalMayChildrenHelpingShowsHandsSeemsCareJoyDiesAsksPleasureCompassionWonderAliveCryEmpathyOrdinaryInfiniteStriveExtraordinaryAppreciationTake CareLive LifeNovelistsYour ChildrenApplesPetSympathyFoolishnessEveryday LifeEnjoy LifeRaising ChildrenAdmirableOrdinary LifeTomatoesCaring For OthersTastingExtraordinary ThingsAppreciate LifePearsLife Is PreciousLife Is GreatExtraordinary Life
Author:William Martin
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“For me, Savannah's resistance to change was its saving grace. The city looked inward, sealed off from the noises and distractions of the world at large. It grew inward, too, and in such a way that its people flourished like hothouse plants tended by an indulgent gardener. The ordinary became extraordinary. Eccentrics thrived. Every nuance and quirk of personality achieved greater brilliance in that lush enclosure than would have been possible anywhere else in the world.”

PeopleWorldWayHas BeensCitiesGreaterGraceGrewPersonalityOrdinaryPlantExtraordinaryResistanceNoiseSavingDistractionInwardGardenerBrillianceNuanceQuirksLushSaving GraceSavannahResistance To ChangeEnclosure
Book:Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
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“I do know the sorrow of being ordinary, and that much of our life is spent doing the crazy mental arithmetic of how, at any given moment, we might improve, or at least disguise or present our defects and screw-ups in either more charming or more intimidating ways.”

KnowsWayMomentsMightLife IsGivenOur LivesCrazySorrowOrdinaryDisguiseCharmingDefectsScrewsIntimidatingArithmeticScrew Ups
Book:Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
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“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.... Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ verse latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”

PeopleIfsWayWisdomChristianNextChristObjectsHolyGloryOrdinaryBlessedMereNeighborSensesMortalsVersesSacramentsOrdinary PeopleBlessed SacramentMere Mortals
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“It is impossible to live the life of a disciple without definite times of secret prayer. You will find that the place to enter in is in your business, as you walk along the streets, in the ordinary ways of life, when no one dreams you are praying, and the reward comes openly, a revival here, a blessing there.”

WayDreamPrayerWalksSecretImpossibleStreetsPrayingBlessingOrdinaryRewardsLive LifeDiscipleDefiniteRevival
Book:Studies in the Sermon on the Mount: God's Character and the Believer's Conduct
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“It is in a way a mystery that, instead of demanding that their governments give primary attention to their own needs and aspirations, most of the citizens of big counties-those, that is, that have the status of being "powers" in the world-far from being self-centered or materialistic as they are commonly credited with being, the ordinary citizen and his elected representative all too often turn out to be romantics, ready and eager to sacrifice programs of health, education and welfare for the power and pride of the nation.”

WorldWayNeedsGivingSelfBigsGovernmentTurnsNationsAttentionSacrificeMysteryReadyPrideCitizensOrdinaryProgramEducationalPrimariesWelfareAspirationRepresentativesSelf CenteredCountyMaterialisticOrdinary CitizensHealth EducationBeing Self Centered
Author:J. William Fulbright
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“This is the way of meditation: encountering the present in all its tremendous beauty, just being in the present. Inside, the mind stops. Outside, the world changes totally. It is no more the ordinary world you have known before. In fact, you have not known it at all. Your mind was distorting everything, your mind was creating fantasies. Your eyes were full of fantasies and you were looking though those fantasies. They never allowed you to see that which is. If the mind is gone, even for a moment, suddenly the whole existence explodes upon you.”

IfsWorldWayMindWholeMomentsFactsEyeExistenceKnownBeautyFantasyGoneMeditationCreatingOrdinaryJust BeingOrdinary World
Author:Rajneesh
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“How did Biot arrive at the partial differential equation? [the heat conduction equation] . . . Perhaps Laplace gave Biot the equation and left him to sink or swim for a few years in trying to derive it. That would have been merely an instance of the way great mathematicians since the very beginnings of mathematical research have effortlessly maintained their superiority over ordinary mortals.”

WayTryingYearsHas BeensScienceLeftResearchOrdinaryInstanceMortalsMathematicalHeatSwimMathematicianSuperiorityEquationsSink Or SwimDifferential Equations
Author:Clifford Truesdell
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