#commonplace

To the average mind popular music would mean compositions vulgarly conceived and commonplace in their treatment. That is absolutely false. ↗

— John Philip Sousa

#average #commonplace #compositions #conceived #false

The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace. ↗

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

#commonplace #ideal #people #present #quite

Vanilla has become too genericized. It’s become standard, which is good. Vanilla is a household name. But the same standardization that’s made it so popular has taken the novelty out of it. Being the vanguard of ice cream has vanquished its radical sensation. ↗

— Benson Bruno

#commonplace #funny #ice-cream #vanilla #funny

Language is the soul of intellect, and reading is the essential process by which that intellect is cultivated beyond the commonplace experiences of everyday life. ↗

— Charles Scribner, Jr.

#commonplace #cultivated #essential #everyday #everyday life

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. ↗

— Cecil Beaton

#anything #assert #be different #commonplace #creatures

To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal. ↗

— Jorge Luis Borges

#creatures #death #divine #except #ignorant

Sometimes a neighbor whom we have disliked a lifetime for his arrogance and conceit lets fall a single commonplace remark that shows us another side, another man, really; a man uncertain, and puzzled, and in the dark like ourselves. ↗

— Willa Cather

#another man #arrogance #commonplace #conceit #dark

We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thrusting it into our dreams or surrendering it to the free play of our subjectivity. ↗

— Raoul Vaneigem

#controlling #dreams #escape #free #into

To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity. ↗

— William Arthur Ward

#commonplace #human #laugh #make #maturity

I think there's something degrading about having a husband for a rival. It's humiliating if you fail and commonplace if you succeed. ↗

— Christopher Hampton

#commonplace #degrading #fail #having #humiliating