Nothing is more ordinary than for vice to correct sin. [ Proverb ]
Government is an art above the attainment of an ordinary genius. [ South ]
The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth. [ Samuel Johnson ]
With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable. [ Sir T. F. Buxton ]
Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much. [ Landor ]
God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because His ordinary works convince it. [ Bacon ]
That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence. [ William Shakespeare ]
It is the ordinary way of the world to keep Folly at the helm, and Wisdom under the hatches. [ Proverb ]
Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good actions; try to use ordinary situations. [ Richter ]
Commonsense has given to words their ordinary signification, and commonsense is the genius of mankind. [ Guizot ]
The wise are instructed by reason, ordinary minds by experience; the stupid by necessity; and brutes by instinct. [ Cicero ]
Why, at this rate, a fellow that has but a groat in his pocket may have a stomach capable of a ten-shilling ordinary. [ Congreve ]
In modern England the ordinary habits of life and modes of education produce great plainness of mind in middle-aged women. [ John Ruskin ]
Method is not less requisite in ordinary conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood. [ Addison ]
Pride, in some particular disguise or other - often a secret to be proud himself - is the most ordinary spring of action among men. [ Steele ]
The ordinary true, or purely real, cannot be the object of the arts. Illusion on a ground of truth - that is the secret of the fine arts. [ Joubert ]
There has never been a great or beautiful character which has not become so by filling well the ordinary and smaller offices appointed by God. [ Horace Bushnell ]
A few books, well studied, and thoroughly digested, nourish the understanding more than hundreds but gargled in the mouth, as ordinary students use. [ F. Osborn ]
Great minds comprehend more in a word, a look, a pressure of the hand, than ordinary men in long conversations, or the most elaborate correspondence. [ Lavater ]
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. [ B. R. Haydon ]
I hold a doctrine, to which I owe not much, indeed, but all the little I ever had, namely, that with ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable. [ Sir T. F. Buxton ]
Superior powers of mind and profound study are of no use if they do not sometimes lead a person to different conclusions from those which are formed by ordinary powers of mind without study. [ J. S. Mill ]
Genius is nothing more than our common faculties refined to a greater intensity. There are no astonishing ways of doing astonishing things. All astonishing things are done by ordinary materials. [ B. R. Haydon ]
Ordinary or Common? A distinction may be thus drawn between these terms; what is common is done by many persons; what is ordinary is repeated many times. Ordinary has to do with the repetition of the act; common, with the persons who perform it. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
There are certain events which to each man's life are as comets to the earth, seemingly strange and erratic portents; distinct from the ordinary lights which guide our course and mark our seasons, yet true to their own laws, potent in their own influences. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the sombre countenance of ordinary nature; they are like music heard out of a workhouse. [ Berz ]
Man reconciles himself to almost any event, however trying, if it happens in the ordinary course of nature. It is the extraordinary alone that he rebels against. There is a moral idea associated with this feeling; for the extraordinary appears to be something like an injustice of heaven. [ Humboldt ]
We meet with few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between, these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth. [ La Bruyere ]
There are few thoughts likely to come across ordinary men which have not already been expressed by greater men in the best possible way; and it is a wiser, more generous, more noble thing to remember and point out the perfect words than to invent poorer ones, wherewith to encumber temporarily the world. [ John Ruskin ]
The study of art possesses this great and peculiar charm, that it is absolutely unconnected with the struggles and contests of ordinary life. By private interests, by political questions, men are deeply divided, and set at variance; but beyond and above all such party strifes, they are attracted and united by a taste for the beautiful in art. [ Guizot ]
Individuals possessing moderate sized brains easily find their proper sphere, and enjoy in it scope for all their energy. In ordinary circumstances they distinguish themselves, but they sink when difficulties accumulate around them. Persons with large brains, on the other hand, do not readily attain their appropriate place; common occurrences do not rouse or call them forth. [ George Combe ]