180 quotes about ordinary follow in order of popularity. Be sure to bookmark and share your favorites!

That all men are equal is a proposition which, at ordinary times, no sane individual has ever given his assent.

Aldous Huxley

It is frequently a misfortune to have very brilliant men in charge of affairs. They expect too much of ordinary men.

Thucydides

The United States can't be so fixed on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans...

Bill Clinton

The most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine.

Robert Bresson

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can - that is their secret.

Hermann Hesse

A man can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The wise are instructed by reason; ordinary minds by experience; the stupid, by necessity; and brutes by instinct.

Cicero

There are so many outrageous things that have gone on in the context of the Enron debacle that the ordinary rules of logic don't seem to apply.

Mike Florio

To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.

Albert Einstein

To my mind to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.

Albert Einstein

Markets are familiar with terrorism now. There has to be something out of the ordinary to create concern.

Thomas Stoecker

Heroes are often the most ordinary of men.

Henry David Thoreau

Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Jim Rohn

I warn you not to be ordinary, I warn you not to be young, I warn you not to fall ill, and I warn you not to grow old.

Neil Kinnock

It is frequently the tragedy of the great artist, as it is of the great scientist, that he frightens the ordinary man.

Loren Eiseley

The appointment of an adviser falls outside the ordinary public service appointment framework.

Masiza Mazizi

The wish to hurt, the momentary intoxication with pain, is the loophole through which the pervert climbs into the minds of ordinary men.

Jacob Bronowski

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.

Iris Murdoch

Mr. Robertson is, of course, no ordinary private citizen.

Bernardo Alvarez

Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good; try to use ordinary situations.

Jean Paul Richter

Speech was given to the ordinary sort of men, whereby to communicate their mind; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.

Robert Southey

It humiliates millions and millions of ordinary peace-loving Muslims.

Akbar Ahmed

He taught us with his actions as well as his words -- he taught the power of nonviolence for human dignity. He was a humble man from ordinary beginnings who became a great man and a hero and one of our greatest teachers.

Walt Blomberg

I think Apple would be more of an ordinary company without him--it would be much less audacious, daring and artistic.

Andy Hertzfeld

Nothing about Gary seemed out of the ordinary. Nothing showed any flashing red lights. From everything I could see, he had a pretty normal lifestyle, from the standpoint of the way he lived and the way he dressed and the cars he drove.

Bill Beatty

At least half of our guests were ordinary people, ... In the beginning we didn't use celebrities at all. But when we did, I think it humanized the stars and gave them more appeal.

Ralph Edwards

I think ordinary Iraqis have picked up on the sense that the economy looks better.

Thomas Delare

We're not doing anything out of the ordinary.

Joe Madrigal

The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.

Thomas Moore

It's so tempting and so easy that it can be a lot to ask ordinary human beings who aren't saints not to do it.

Jonathan Moreno

I love Greek Week. Although the week can be stressful, it is really a nice break from the ordinary. It is a celebration of Greek life, which I truly enjoy.

Ron Lunk

Ordinary people were attacked on their way to work.

Mary Murphy

On an ordinary hurricane, you get in the day before and you cover the landfall. You cover the day after, maybe a bit of the second day after, and you go home. But this one just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Marcy Mcginnis

We are just ordinary people who may have done an extraordinary thing.

Michael Hall's

The genius of the American system is that through freedom we have created extraordinary results from plain old ordinary people.

Phil Gramm

You know, $90,000 would pay a pretty long bar tab. I'm pretty sure that ordinary Hoosiers could've come up with something more creative after a few beers and some honest conversation.

Jennifer Wagner

You know your pet best. Any behavior out of the ordinary, in this kind of heat, should alert you that something is wrong.

Jamie Shelton

There are no ordinary cats.

Sidonie Gabrielle

Our assessment is that a staggering amount of terror financing travels through ordinary western banking channels. We believe that the banks knowingly facilitate terror financing.

Gary Osen

As far as I can tell, things are status quo. There's nothing out of the ordinary.

Nico Melendez

We were surprised. We were scratching our heads. Something of this magnitude is really out of the ordinary.

Arialdi Minino

They're looking for something out of the ordinary, something their neighbors don't have.

Tom Barrese

We pretty much picked ordinary stocks.

David Fitzgerald

I really didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about him.

Kevin Aldridge

It is nothing out of the ordinary that you haven't been exposed to. I think you've got more danger with a cell phone.

William Burkhard

I'm interested in people on the fringe, ordinary people who have to deal with extraordinary things.

C. David Heymann

Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

I like photography that is out of the ordinary. The ones that stick out to me the most and hold my attention are the ones that I choose.

Christina Fernandez

This is an odious and appalling attack on ordinary people.

Nigel Dodds

It turns out that the latter is the case. The chemical composition appears to be very ordinary.

George Becker

Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State.

Heinrich Himmler

An ordinary man can...surround himself with two thousand books...and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy.

Augustine Birrell

Nobody sent you to this college to be ordinary. Most of you will graduate and do what someone tells you to be, but how many of you will be extraordinary?

Sister Souljah

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the ordinary.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Darius is stocky. And he's not an ordinary fullback because he can run right by you.

Rick Vanhoy

It's nothing out of the ordinary, but we're starting to get more calls. The potential is there.

Chris Kintner

Unless something out of the ordinary happens, it's going to be a tight game just like they always are.

Rob Cummins

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

John W. Gardner

There are no ordinary moments.

Dan Millman

It's just that if you're not disruptive everything seems to be repeated endlessly - not so much the good things but the bland things - the ordinary things - the weaker things get repeated- the stronger things get suppressed and held down and hidden.

Robert Adamson

She's just funny about accolades, ... She would say, 'I haven't done anything out of the ordinary.'

Martha Roberts

The bill which I filed along with 10 other senators last month, will help cushion the impact of the e-VAT law on power consumers, especially the common households. I believe ordinary consumers should be spared from the negative effects of higher electricity bills.

Franklin Drilon

The organs come from ordinary citizens who voluntarily give them.

Chu Maoming

Ranged from bad to ordinary.

David Fricke

Most ordinary politicians run quickly away from it.

Jamin Raskin

For an ordinary, small-town lawyer, he accomplished incredible things. He reached heights one wouldn't expect of an African-American lawyer -- or any lawyer coming from his background. And these days, no one knows it.

Judith Kilpatrick

Ordinary Iraqis, domestic entrepreneurs and foreign investors have all been waiting for stability, predictability and greater security.

Thomas Delare

The great corporations of this country were not founded by ordinary people. They were founded by people with extraordinary intelligence, ambition, and aggressiveness.

Daniel P. Moynihan

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.

Johann Kaspar Lavater

I just wanted to be an ordinary parish priest.

Martin Scorsese

Everything, even the most ordinary daily affair, is enriched by the lessons that can be gleaned from art....

Michael Kimmelman

Within everyday ordinary people, if you look closely, you can find some extraordinary things.

Joseph Badaracco

It's just this epidemic unimportance, this pervasive feeling that just about everything is "no big deal," that drives these ordinary people to those fast-food joints, there to try to fill with carbohydrates the spiritual and emotional emptiness gnawing inside them.

Ron Loewinsohn

It was not our intent to make him the highest-paid player ever (in his category). It just evolved to that because this is no ordinary player.

Joe Urbon

Those aren't ordinary freshmen. They have some toughness to them. You saw them hit some big shots tonight.

Mick Durham

There aren't any millionaires that I know of in this park, at least not in our organization. We're all pretty ordinary.

Buck Rogers

My tax return is in a sense very ordinary.

Robert Anderson

More than any other society, there is a good chance of success for the ordinary guy in America. In America, there is the chance to move up perhaps more than any other society. In America, we are architects of our own destiny. We construct it.

Dinesh D'Souza

I just want to go to university and have fun - I want to be an ordinary student. I'm only going to university. It's not like I'm getting married - though that's what it feels like sometimes.

Prince William

An adult can be gone if they want to be gone. And unless there's blood found or any kind of thing out of the ordinary, there's nothing we can do.

Joe Rios

[Sept. 11] made us understand that security is everybody's business, ... They know who should be in the neighborhood and who should not. They know when someone's out of the ordinary.

Michael Fishman

We haven't found anything out of the ordinary in financial transactions. Normally people get some cash when they get ready to go somewhere.

Lt. Dennis Dinsmore

I wasn't involved in the casting at that state, but I think it was a good idea. I think she's one of those actresses where you can dress her up or dress her down. She can be very beautiful or very ordinary- looking and I think that's really important with Bridget. And I've heard she's very funny, but I've never met her.

Helen Fielding

Sometimes ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary circumstances.

Peter Kelly

He confronts problems very directly and in direct, colloquial language. He has a great capacity for communication with the ordinary citizen.

Alfredo Rangel

I think Lane is a very good team. But I never in my wildest dreams did I think they could beat us that bad. I honestly didn't think that was possible. And the thing is that they didn't do anything out of the ordinary ... and we couldn't handle it.

Dave Stricklin

This is a setback not only to the media, but to the gains made by ordinary Kenyans. This is draconian, it is as if we have returned to the Middle Ages.

Uhuru Kenyatta

If ordinary citizens could use their Senate seats to receive $80 million in state contracts, we could all afford to put $2 million into our campaigns.

Trav Robertson

Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people.

Aleister Crowley

An ordinary kitten will ask more questions than any five-year-old.

Carl Van Vechten

We ordinary citizens do have a role to play. While individually it isn't a big role, if many of us get together and do our little bit, we can make a difference.

Brenda Stewart

I don't think it's out of the ordinary because revenue estimating is always difficult.

Lenny Goldberg

My life has been nothing special. I am a quiet person who came from a very ordinary, middle-class Negro family.

Ruth Ellis

Re-using existing structures is very sustainable. It allows us to create something that provides delight out of a very ordinary object.

Jan Gleason

All the systems were checked [and] there was no data to suggest anything out of the ordinary.

Rob Navias

We have a team of people here who review the comments to make sure there's nothing there out of the ordinary.

Angie Hicks

I'm an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job.

Bernie Mac

It just goes to show you that anything that looks out of the ordinary is going to strike fear in people now.

Carlos Acosta

We are very concerned at this action and regret that it deprives a great number of ordinary Iranians of a trusted source of impartial and editorially independent news and information.

Nigel Chapman

Rock isn't art, it's the way ordinary people talk.

Billy Idol

It's better to leave these matters in the hands of the Justice Department; let them handle it through the ordinary course.

Ronald Cass

I realize Dr. Jones' frustration, but the cases that take this long are out of the ordinary. (Violations) are criminal actions and the defendants have the right to an attorney and right to a defense.

Charlie Duggan

Nothing is so frequent as to mistake an ordinary human gift for a special and extraordinary endowment.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

It was unbelievable. It was a great awareness play by Gonzalez, who seems to always be in those positions to make those kinds of out-of-the-ordinary plays.

Tim Cossins

Nothing out of the ordinary regarding the first lady's trip overseas.

Jonathan Cherry

These vetoes basically say to these people that they can flout the law without repercussions, ... Ordinary taxpayers can't do that.

Lenny Goldberg

There was nothing that I saw that would be considered out of the ordinary.

Pat Simon

Joseph's strength is his personal love of style. He's an inspiration to ordinary guys. Style isn't about good looks or money; it's about how you put things together.

Nick Sullivan

Discontent with Republican is not going to be enough for us to win. We have got to offer more than to replace bad leadership with ordinary leadership. We have to offer creative leadership and vision.

Deval Patrick

I'm more encouraged because of the effort of the ordinary guys - the fans - to get this done. I have a heightened optimism that we're going to get something accomplished.

Henry Morgan

In San Francisco, you learn to expect that anything will happen. It's out of the ordinary for something unusual not to happen.

Theresa Smith

We call Collin Mr. February. He has the ability to make timely saves. He made the extraordinary look pretty ordinary.

Michael Rabasca

We can make an ordinary letter or package extraordinary.

Diane Rullan

Even her oil paintings aren't ordinary by any means.

Ann Jaroski

It's crazy, isn't it? I'm really unbelievably ordinary.

Joe Lunardi

It is a very high price. It is a little out of the ordinary, frankly.

Larry Randolph

A building of this nature, it's not out of the ordinary. With something that big, that's often the case.

Lance Simms

I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams... Man... is above all the plaything of his memory.

Andre Breton

Today, we call for a global coalition of women economic decision-makers committed to making change happen in the lives of ordinary women and men on the ground. It is important to act now.

Noeleen Heyzer

This is work that everyone can understand on one level or another. The artists take ordinary items and endow them with a different meaning that often has to do with a little linguistic twist.

Noel Smith

There is almost always something to look for out of the ordinary. The quality of his work creates possibility and leaves room for the imagination.

Lee Brumbaugh

I have directed the zonal inspector general of police to carry out the inquiry and fix responsibility for misbehavior of cops with ordinary citizens.

Yashpal Singh

We expect our movie stars to do extraordinary things, because they're iconic. But to capture the measure of achievement of those people on that airplane, it was essential to believe they were as ordinary as you or I.

Paul Greengrass

These were not super dogs. They were just ordinary household pets.

Nicholas Broffman

One of the sad truths I have come to see is that for this kind of mass violence, you don't need monsters. Ordinary people will do just fine. This thing lives in all of us.

Craig Etcheson

I'm happy that for the first time we will be allowed to enter the stadiums like ordinary human beings.

Parastoo Dokouhaki

This is kind of out of the ordinary. I'm puzzled. In the past, they have been more forthcoming. I believe the public needs to know the truth.

Tom Tylutki

To be old is to be part of a huge and ordinary multitude . . . the reason why old age was venerated in the past was because it was extraordinary.

Ronald Blythe

We owe these men and women something above and beyond ordinary people.

Michael Donahoe

This sounds an extraordinary statement to make, but in fact all truth is very ordinary.

Brian Perkins

An extraordinary guy can never have an ordinary day.

Oasis

This will be the best all-around boxing card ever here in Los Angeles, ... The prices of the card are affordable. They appeal to the ordinary boxing fan here in Los Angeles. You will not see tickets for $1000. Fans who love boxing can purchase tickets as low as $25. Over half the tickets are $50 and less.

Bob Arum

They basically had an ordinary guy, and he was involved in an extraordinarily heinous crime. He just was not a likable person.

John Burris

I am here to seduce you into a love of life; to help you to become a little more poetic; to help you die to the mundane and to the ordinary so that the extraordinary explodes in your life. .

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Our interaction with the non-con-going public was limited, which means that while we looked pretty strange, it's nothing out of the ordinary at an anime convention.

Amy Lee

If we have one false positive a month, it gives us concern. So 13 is out of the ordinary. That's outrageously high.

Jim Key

An ordinary person would not see it, ... aggressive Russian intelligence activity in the United States.

Neil Gallagher

We are going to ignore it because it has no value. It is pure nonsense and the former president will go on with ordinary life.

Mutula Kilonzo

Great men are little men expanded; great lives are ordinary lives intensified.

Wilfred A. Peterson

I've tried to make a book that's accessible to the ordinary, intelligent reader. Very often books that cover this kind of subject are written by academics, for academics. But I am not an academic.

Brian Crozier

The levels of corruption in Bangladesh and Chad are extremely serious and have devastating consequences for ordinary people, who have to pay bribes simply to get things which they're entitled to.

David Nussbaum

We think it is very important that she connects with the ordinary citizens of the countries she visits.

Jim Wilkinson

I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.

Alice Paul

We're a little out of the ordinary.

Grayson White

To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

George Orwell

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

Elbert Hubbard

At a basic and obvious level, it ties into gut level concern of ordinary people.

Tom Schlesinger

I'll probably be working. To the ordinary run-of-the-mill person, I think this will just be another day.

Bob Taylor

It's because she was such a magical person that (many people think) she couldn't die an ordinary death. People think she couldn't die in a drunken-driving accident. She was such an icon.

Ingrid Seward

Some of the concerns of ordinary Afghans on the ground are the drug problem and the fact that there has been a lot of rhetoric around the drug problem but not really a lot of serious attention.

Paul O'brien

It's a huge deal to ordinary families.

Barbara Becker

Ordinary people were deceived into signing this petition.

Luke Massie

This information is not being adequately disseminated to pregnant women. If the food pyramid can't get it right, how can ordinary Americans?

Richard Wiles

The Arts and Crafts Movement was about design for living. It was design for ordinary people. That was a passion that was represented no matter what country Arts and Crafts evolved in.

Karen Livingstone

When you see things that have stalled, it's because of price. The million-dollar one-bedroom is not a fact of life. It exists, but it exists in special buildings with something that is beyond the ordinary.

Pamela Liebman

Genius is nothing more than common faculties refined to a greater intensity. There are no astonishing ways of doing astonishing things. All astonishing things are done by ordinary materials.

Benjamin Haydon

Ordinary women attempt to change our bodies to resemble a pornographic ideal. Ordinary women construct a false self and come to hate this self.

Susan Griffin

We write songs about ordinary people, not people that have a certain haircut.

Richard Archer

Most ordinary members of the public... neither understand nor care about the ratings battle, we of course do, because for us it is life or death.

Damian Fraser

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse.

Carlos Casteneda

I don?t think that?s particularly out of the ordinary.

Bruce Watzman

The mother said, 'They call your son a hero, and my son is a hero,' ... I said, 'I know, but I just can't see it that way.' She said, 'I looked it up in the dictionary and a hero is an ordinary person doing an extraordinary job.' So I guess that's true.

Bonita Favre

Too late, the ordinary German realized that the violence which before had been directed against 'other' people could now equally land on him.

William Waller

I think it will take about 15,000 ordinary jobs to make up for the lost Ford jobs.

Fred Zimmerman

It looks definitely that we are way out of the ordinary. My prediction is that this will be a big flu season. It's all over Northern California.

Dr. Roger Baxter

The cat is the only non-gregarious domestic animal. It is retained by its extra-ordinary adhesion to the comforts of the house in which it is reared.

Francis Galton

He's quite extraordinary at being ordinary. He has this dichotomy about him that's fascinating to watch.

Paul Mcguigan

The fact that we write about it doesn't mean we play better than ordinary players at all.

Al Alvarez

Genius ... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

Ezra Pound

There is no connection between the artists who performed at the event and ordinary, run-of-the-mill graffiti arrests.

Daniel Perez

They're playing like an ordinary team, but I remember that was the case two seasons ago.

Claude Julien

We were really ordinary people and we really owe a debt of gratitude to (their adviser) Daisy Bates and to our parents.

Ernest Green

There never has been a war yet which, if the facts had been put calmly before the ordinary folk, could not have been prevented ... The common man, I think, is the great protection against war.

Ernest Bevin

It is not cost-effective for us to buy [medications] that are not usually necessary or out of the ordinary.

Elvira Velez

Right now we have no evidence that the rise in gas prices is not the result of ordinary market forces .

Emily Lucier

I look for the extraordinary in the ordinary. The shadow is often more interesting than the object itself.

Ellen Thorsen

You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated.

Edmund Hillary

It's a shame. If these guys are going to come to the ultimate meet for these kids, they should be coming in better equipped to handle diving like that. He's not your ordinary high school diver. There were some scores in there that were an injustice to him.

Ed Aston

I'm happy to see Baker's coming forward, ... A campaign should really be a test of who you are as a candidate. How is an ordinary citizen supposed to connect with him?

E. Helm