162 Ordinary Man Quotes

Following is our list of ordinary man quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about ordinary guy.

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Famous Ordinary Man Quotes

All men are ordinary men; the extraordinary men are those who know it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain. — Colin Wilson

There are no extraordinary men... just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with. — William Halsey

A common man marvels at uncommon things. A wise man marvels at the commonplace. — Confucius

An artist is only an ordinary man with a greater potentiality. - D. H. Lawrence

An artist is only an ordinary man with a greater potentiality. — D. H. Lawrence

The artist is not a special kind of man, but every man is a special kind of artist. — Ananda Coomaraswamy

There are no great men, only ordinary men, who have met extraordinary challenges. — William Halsey

The common man, no matter how sharp and tough, actually enjoys having the wool pulled over his eyes, and makes it easier for the puller. — P. T. Barnum

Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions. — Samuel Butler

the average man does not want to be free. he simply wants to be safe. — H. L. Mencken

‎The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus. — Bruce Lee

A hero is a man who does what he can. - Romain Rolland

A hero is a man who does what he can. — Romain Rolland

NO MAN CAN AVOID BEING BORN AVERAGE, BUT NO MAN HAS TO STAY AVERAGE. — Satchel Paige

I'd like to be seen as an average Australian bloke. I can't think of... I can't think of a nobler description of anybody than to be called an average Australian bloke. — John Howard

I'm the guy, I'm kind of like the, uh, Everyman, so I think people just relate to that. — Kato Kaelin

Short Ordinary Man Quotes

  • You can't be common, the common man goes nowhere; you have to be uncommon — Herb Brooks
  • Every single ordinary person has an extraordinary story. — Cecelia Ahern
  • A man is a man, until that man finds a plan, a plan that makes that man, a new man — Dred Scott
  • I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook. — Henry Hill
  • Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary. — Gerard Way
  • A man's a man. But when you see a king, you see the work of many thousand men. — George Eliot

Ordinary Man Image Quotes

Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one. - Ezra Pound quote

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

It is best for ordinary men to have only one wife ! - Akbar quote

It is best for ordinary men to have only one wife ! — Akbar

Ordinary man quote Do not correct a fool or he will hate you. Correct a wise man and he will appreciate you.
Do not correct a fool or he will hate you. Correct a wise man and he will appreciate you.

An Ordinary Man Quotes

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 as a blessing or a curse. — Carlos Castaneda

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The difference between a great soul and an ordinary man is this: the latter weeps while leaving this body, whereas the former laughs. Death seems to him a mere play. — Sarada Devi

Ordinary man quote Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.
Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.

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

I think of the self-actualizing man not as an ordinary man with something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing taken away. The average man is a full human being with dampened and inhibited powers and capabilities. — Abraham Maslow

The passing of an ordinary man is sad. The passing of a great man is tragic, and doubly tragic when the greatness passes before the man does. — Harpo Marx

Ordinary man quote The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute. The man who does not ask, is a fool for life.
The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute. The man who does not ask, is a fool for life.

Be assured, he is not an ordinary man. — George Meade

The simple act of an ordinary courageous man is not to take part, not to support lies! Let that come into the world and even reign over it, but not through me. Writers and artists can do more: they can vanquish lies! ... Lies can stand up against much in the world, but not against art. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I will not be an ordinary man, because I have a right to be extraordinary. — Peter O'Toole

The men flyers have given out the impression that aeroplaning is very perilous work, something that an ordinary mortal should not dream of attempting. But when I saw how easily the man flyers manipulated their machines I said I could fly. — Harriet Quimby

Ordinary Guy Quotes

People don't want to see the guy next door on the stage, they want to see a being from another planet. You want to see somebody you'd never meet in ordinary life. — Lemmy Kilmister

They see me as an ordinary guy, like a construction worker or the guy who delivers your piano. — Clark Gable

It is very difficult to be like the other guy, to be ordinary. Mediocrity takes a great deal of energy. But to be ourselves is very easy. You don't have to do a thing. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Ordinary man quote Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.
Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.

I like to live life in an understated way because that's who I am - an ordinary guy who has experienced an extraordinary journey. — Simon Weston

If I'm playing someone who's smart, suddenly every character I've played is smart. If I'm playing a bad guy, every character is a bad guy. I suppose it's that thing where people want to see a through-line to understand you. I mean, you know, I have played pretty ordinary people too. — Benedict Cumberbatch

I was proud to have been the anti-establishment candidate after more than twenty years in politics, a small town guy fighting for the ordinary Canadian. — Jean Chretien

Ordinary man quote A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything.
A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything.

You would be amazed what the ordinary guy knows. — Matt Drudge

I'm not a star, and I don't want to be a star. Stars fall. I'm an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job. — Bernie Mac

I’m still here, still in love with you, and care about you more than any other guy ever will." -Adrian- — Richelle Mead

Well, you can think what you want, so long as you remember - no matter how ordinary things seem between us - I'm still here, still in love with you, and care about you more than any other guy, evil or otherwise, ever will. — Richelle Mead

Old Man Advice Quotes

Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. — Francois de la Rochefoucauld

The old man gives the best advice. — Zimbabwean Proverbs

Take an old man’s counsel and an experienced man’s knowledge — Greek Proverbs

Ordinary man quote The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise man grows it under his feet.
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise man grows it under his feet.

A young man should not marry yet, an old man not at all — Greek Proverbs

Old men are always advising young men to save money. That is bad advice. Don't save every nickel. Invest in yourself. I never saved a dollar until I was forty years old. — Henry Ford

The worst advice I ever received from my dad was to play by the book. My old man used to flip out whenever I would try to branch out and do something different. Although he didn't do it on purpose, he really held me back in the beginning. — Dimebag Darrell

Ordinary man quote Words of comfort skillfully administered are the oldest therapy known to man.
Words of comfort skillfully administered are the oldest therapy known to man.

Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples. — Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Can I give a little advice to the old man on Capitol Hill? Stop saying teabagger. Ask your younger staffers what it means. — Andrea Tantaros

My old manager of the Irish National Theatre said 'Don't worry about being a star, just worry about being a working actor. Just keep working.' I think that's really good advice. — Colm Meaney

When the last Puritan has disappeared from the earth, the man of science will take his place as a killjoy, and we shall be given the same old advice but for different reasons. — Robert Staughton Lynd

Any Ordinary Day Quotes

What ideal, immutable Platonic cloud could equal the beauty and perfection of any ordinary everyday cloud floating over, say, Tuba City, Arizona, on a hot day in June? — Edward Abbey

Summer weather, like being in love,is a philosopher's stone which turns our ordinary days to gold. But not the whole day ... For it is never the whole day, never all our life which is transformed in any happiness, but only the exquisite moments. — Nan Fairbrother

All knowledge is good. It is impossible to say any fragment of knowledge, however insignificant or remote from one's ordinary pursuits, may not some day be turned to account. — Thomas Huxley

Ordinary man quote No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

I say I don't need a tax cut. It will not do me any more good. I can't buy more, I can't eat more, I can't do more, and I want it distributed among the ordinary people who work every day. — Frank Lautenberg

I couldn't find any good pictures in magazines of ordinary modern street corners in America, so I persuaded this guy I knew in Sacramento - Stanley Something-or-other - to spend a day with me driving around just to take snapshots. — Robert Crumb

As a stylist I know accessorization is essential: It is the personal touch to any outfit. With these pieces everybody can have fun, turning an ordinary day into a fantastic fashion day. — Anna Dello Russo

Ordinary Person Quotes

Remember. Every day, some ordinary person does something extraordinary. Today, it's your turn. — Lou Holtz

Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny. - C. S. Lewis

Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny. — C. S. Lewis

My basic mistake in 'The World's Greatest Lover' was that I made the leading character a neurotic kook and sent him to Hollywood. I should have made him a perfectly normal, sane, ordinary person, and sent him to Hollywood. The audience identifies with the lead character. — Gene Wilder

Ordinary man quote A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Just try to make the world a better place for your having been here. — Jimmy Doolittle

Rationalism belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average person, they follow not reason, but faith. This naïve faith, requires necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth maker to keep the ordinary person on course. — Sayings

I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff. — Aleister Crowley

Ordinary man quote Every man dies. Not every man really lives.
Every man dies. Not every man really lives.

I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. — Nicolaus Copernicus

Ordinary people, even weak people, can do extraordinary things through temporary courage generated by a situation. But the person of character does not need the situation to generate his courage. It is a part of his being and a standard approach to all life's challenges. — Michael Josephson

If you pursue happiness, you are an ordinary person. If happiness pursues you, you are an extraordinary person. Do not chase happiness; let it chase you. — Peter Deunov

There are three kinds of friends in the world. An ordinary person sees only who you are; for that you don't need a friend. Then there's a friend who sees in you what you can be. And then there's the real holy Friend, and the presence of this Friend you are already. — Shlomo Carlebach

Ordinary People Quotes

God never intended His people to be ordinary or commonplace. His intentions were that they should be on fire for Him, conscious of His divine power, realizing the glory of the cross that foreshadows the crown. — Smith Wigglesworth

Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny. - C. S. Lewis

Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny. — C. S. Lewis

Shortly, the public will be unable to reason or think for themselves. They'll only be able to parrot the information they've been given on the previous night's news. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Ordinary man quote If you want to test a man’s character give him power.
If you want to test a man’s character give him power.

For the birth of something new, there has to be a happening. Newton saw an apple fall; James Watt watched a kettle boil; Roentgen fogged some photographic plates. And these people knew enough to translate ordinary happenings into something new. — Alexander Fleming

Ordinary people love entertainment. Extraordinary people adore education. - Robin S. Sharma

Ordinary people love entertainment. Extraordinary people adore education. — Robin S. Sharma

Pay any price to stay in the presence of extraordinary people. — Mike Murdock

To me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality. — Alice Paul

There aren't any great men. There are just great challenges that ordinary men like you and me are forced by circumstances to meet. — William Halsey

Successful people do ordinary things with extraordinary consistency, commitment and focus. — Jon Gordon

If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear. People who can open to the web of life that called us into being — Joanna Macy

Average Man Quotes

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think. — Mark Twain

To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other. — Carlos Castaneda

Country music to me is heartfelt music that speaks to the common man. It is about real life stories with rather simple melodies that the average person can follow. Country music should speak directly and simply about the highs and lows of life. Something that anyone can relate to. — George Jones

The average man can't prove most of the things that he chooses to speak of, and still won't research and find out the root of the truth that you seek of — Damian Marley

The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is. — Charles M. Schwab

The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is. — Robert H. Schuller

Marriage is about the most expensive way for the average man to get laundry done. — Burt Reynolds

A women can make an average man great, and a great man average. - Robert Burns

A women can make an average man great, and a great man average. — Robert Burns

Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes. — Knute Rockne

There are people who tell you to shut up because you're just a celebrity, but pundits, talking heads, they're every bit the celebrity and a lot of them aren't any more qualified than the average man on the street. — Kevin Bacon

Ordinary Life Quotes

Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary. — Oscar Wilde

Life is too short, the world is too big and God's love is too great to live ordinary. — Christine Caine

The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart. — Mencius

Life gives to all the choice. You can satisfy yourself with mediocrity if you wish. You can be common, ordinary, dull, colorless, or yyou can channel your life so that it will be clean, vibrant, useful, progressive, colorful, and rich. — Spencer W. Kimball

I've seen and met angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives. — Tracy Chapman

The highest point at which human life and art meet is in the ordinary. To look down on the ordinary is to despise what you can't have. Show me a man who fears being ordinary, and I'll show you a man who is not yet a man. — Yukio Mishima

When I was three years old I was taken with my family to a little town in Western Minnesota, where I lived a more or less vapid and ordinary life until I was ten. — Mary MacLane

There are no great people in this world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet. — William Halsey

Rely on the ordinary virtues that intelligent, balanced human beings have relied on for centuries: common sense, thrift, realistic expectations, patience, and perseverance. — John C. Bogle

The highest art is the art of living an ordinary life in an extraordinary manner. — Tibetan Proverbs

Common Man Quotes

God is not looking for men of great faith, He is looking for common men to trust His great faithfulness. — Hudson Taylor

If one is determined to die for the truth, even a common man can create history. — Velupillai Prabhakaran

Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility. — Olympe de Gouges

In the history of the human race, those periods which later appeared as great have been the periods when the men and the women belonging to them had transcended the differences that divided them and had recognized in their membership in the human race a common bond. — Haile Selassie

This country [the Philippines] is like a pyramid, like a tower. It is made up of millions of stones... . And the foundation stone of this pyramid is the common man. — Ramon Magsaysay

To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. — Thomas Hobbes

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society and made by the legislative power vested in it and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man. — John Locke

When the bell tolls three times, it will announce that I have been killed. If I am killed by common men, you and your children will rule Russia for centuries to come; if I am killed by one of your stock, you and your family will be killed by the Russian people! Pray Tsar of Russia. Pray. — Grigori Rasputin

The best perfection of a religious man is to do common things in a perfect manner. A constant fidelity in small things is a great and heroic virtue. — Bonaventure

Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection. — Henry A. Wallace

Ordinary Citizens Quotes

I was brought up in a very ordinary family, in fact, a worker's family. Both my father and mother were ordinary citizens. — Vladimir Putin

I certainly think its very important that writers as citizens - not necessarily as writers, but just as ordinary citizens - should talk about things that matter to them. — Vikram Seth

Democracy is not just voting for your leaders; it's really premised upon ordinary citizens understanding the issues. — Howard Rheingold

A song has a few rights the same as ordinary citizens... if it happens to feel like flying where humans cannot fly... to scale mountains that are not there, who shall stop it? — Charles Ives

Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of ordinary life. — Michael Sandel

There is a denial of the value of the individual. Christianity affirms the value of each individual soul. Nazism denies it. The individual is sacrificed to the idol of the German Leader, German State or the German race. The ordinary citizen is allowed to hear and think only as the rulers decree. — Clement Attlee

Medicine people are truly citizens of two worlds, and those who continue to walk the path of medicine power learn to keep their balance in both the ordinary and the non-ordinary worlds. — Paula Gunn Allen

I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create money...And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people. — Reginald McKenna

What people don't understand is this is something that we only have in America. There is no other country in the world where the ordinary citizen can go out and enjoy hunting and fishing. There's no other nation in the world where that happens. And it's very much a part of our heritage. — Norman Schwarzkopf

Architects today tend to depreciate themselves, to regard themselves as no more than just ordinary citizens without the power to reform the future. — Kenzo Tange

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Read quotes by William Halsey

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Read quotes by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Read quotes by Colin Wilson

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quotes on god

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Read quotes by Confucius

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Read quotes by D. H. Lawrence

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Read quotes by Ananda Coomaraswamy

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More Ordinary Man Quotes

The years go by one after the other; time slips past us with out our being aware of it; we grow old like ordinary men and we shall end like them. — Louis XIV

Relish the challenge of overcoming difficulties that would crush ordinary men...learn to suffer. — Mark Twight

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

I don’t think there is any such thing as an ordinary mortal. Everybody has his own possibility of rapture in the experience of life. All he has to do is recognize it and then cultivate it and get going with it. I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I’ve never met an ordinary man, woman, or child. — Joseph Campbell

In the immortal words of George Orwell, 'One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.' — Gad Saad

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. — Bill Vaughan

There is something universal in the theme of a man trying to save his family in the midst of the most terrible circumstances. It is not limited to Sierra Leone. This story could apply to any number of places where ordinary people have been caught up in political events beyond their control. — Edward Zwick

A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent (which I cannot deny myself to be without being impious) will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

When it's time to get dressed, put on your clothes. When you must walk, then walk. When you must sit, then sit. Just be your ordinary self in ordinary life, unconcerned in seeking for Buddhahood. When you're tired, lie down. The fool will laugh at you but the wise man will understand. — Linji Yixuan

Everything has two aspects: the current aspect, which we see nearly always and which ordinary men see, and the ghostly and metaphysical aspect, which only rare individuals may see in moments of clairvoyance and metaphysical abstraction. — Giorgio de Chirico

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

Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, singers of songs. — Pam Brown

Ordinary men live in fear all the time. Didn't you know that? We're afraid of the weather, we're afraid of powerful men, we're afraid of the night and the monsters that lurk in the dark, we're afraid of growing old and of dying. Sometimes we're even afraid of living. Ordinary men are afraid almost every minute of their lives. — David Eddings

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra. The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me you don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step the man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. — Confucius

It is difficult, none the less, for the ordinary man to cast off orthodox beliefs, for he is seldom allowed to hear the other side... Whereas the Christian view is pressed on him day in and day out. — Margaret E. Knight

All that makes a lunatic are the very ordinary ideas of mankind shut up inside a man's head. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I felt that everything is beautiful, but that which man tries intentionally to make beautiful; that the work of an ordinary bricklayer is more valid than the artwork of all but a very few artists. — Ellsworth Kelly

Ordinary men are given the authority of the priesthood. Worthiness and willingness - not experience, expertise, or education - are the qualifications for priesthood ordination. — David A. Bednar

For the ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle (home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics) he feels himself master of his fate, but against major events he is as helpless as against the elements. So far from endeavoring to influence the future, he simply lies down and lets things happen to him. — George Orwell

No ordinary work done by a man is either as hard or as responsible as the work of a woman who is bringing up a family of small children; for upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of the day but often every hour of the night. — Theodore Roosevelt

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances. — Nelson Mandela

Great men are just ordinary men that didn't quit. — Tommy Barnett

There is an attraction and a charm inherent in the colossal that is not subject to ordinary theories of art ... The tower will be the tallest edifice ever raised by man. Will it therefore be imposing in its own way? — Gustave Eiffel

Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind, because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science. — Sigmund Freud

The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript. — Aleister Crowley

The mind of an ordinary man is truly near the heart. — Sri Aurobindo

There is a terrible alienation in the ordinary man between what he is being told and what he secretly believes. — John Le Carre

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