Infra Ordinary Quotes

What speaks to us, seemingly, is always the big event, the untoward, the extra-ordinary: the front-page splash, the banner headlines....Behind the event there is a scandal, a fissure, a danger, as if life reveals itself only by way of the spectacular, as if what speaks, what is significant, is always abnormal. [But] how should we take account of, question, describe what happens everyday and recurs everyday: the banal, the quotidian, the obvious, the common, the ordinary, the infra-ordinary, the background noise, the habitual? (209-210) ~ Georges Perec

The exercise of magical power is the exercise of natural powers, but superior to the ordinary functions of Nature. A miracle is not a violation of the laws of Nature, except for ignorant people. Magic is but a science, a profound knowledge of the Occult forces in Nature, and of the laws governing the visible or the invisible world. Spiritualism in the hands of an adept becomes Magic, for he is learned in the art of blending together the laws of the Universe, without breaking any of them and thereby violating Nature. ~ H. P. Blavatsky

But you - you notice mailboxes and wastebaskets and... and people. One who can see the ordinary is extraordinary indeed, Abigail Rook. - Jackaby ~ William Ritter

This economy is based upon consumption, which ultimately serves, not the ordinary consumers, but a tiny class of excessively wealthy people for whose further enrichment the economy is understood (by them) to exist. For the purpose of their further enrichment, these plutocrats and the great corporations that serve them have controlled the economy by the purchase of political power. The purchased governments do not act in the interest of the governed and their country; they act instead as agents for the corporations. ~ Wendell Berry

And she is your holy Mary. And I am so ordinary. ~ Paula Cole

This story was written many moons ago under an apple tree in an orchard in Kent, which is one of England's prettiest counties . . . I had read at least twenty of the [fairy tales] when I noticed something that had never struck me before--I suppose because I had always taken it for granted. All the princesses, apart from such rare exceptions as Snow White, were blond, blue-eyed, and beautiful, with lovely figures and complexions and extravagantly long hair. This struck me as most unfair, and suddenly I began to wonder just how many handsome young princes would have asked a king for the hand of his daughter if that daughter had happened to be gawky, snub-nosed, and freckled, with shortish mouse-colored hair? None, I suspected. They would all have been of chasing after some lissome Royal Highness with large blue eyes and yards of golden hair and probably nothing whatever between her ears! It was in that moment that a story about a princess who turned out to be ordinary jumped into my mind, and the very next morning I took my pencil box and a large rough-notebook down to the orchard and, having settled myself under an apple tree in full bloom, began to write . . . the day was warm and windless and without a cloud in the sky. A perfect day and a perfect place to write a fairy story. ~ M.M. Kaye

And as hearbes and trees are bettered and fortified by being transplanted, so formes of speach are embellished and graced by variation ... As in our ordinary language, we shall sometimes meete with excellent phrases, and quaint metaphors, whose blithnesse fadeth through age, and colour is tarnish by to common using them ... ~ Michel De Montaigne

Hillary Clinton is now in Iowa. She's spending every waking minute of her day meeting ordinary people, and it's to prepare her for a job in which she will never again meet an ordinary person. ~ David Letterman

The people who stood out in the Sandy Hook incident, the heroes, were the normal, ordinary people who went to save those children. ~ Marcia Gay Harden

She's far from ordinary;
she's a rare breed,
a black rose,
a deep soul,
a gypsy heart,
a bright star.
Or you could simply say,
she's magic. ~ Melody Lee

Von Neumann languages do not have useful properties for reasoning about programs. Axiomatic and denotational semantics are precise tools for describing and understanding conventional programs, but they only talk about them and cannot alter their ungainly properties. Unlike von Neumann languages, the language of ordinary algebra is suitable both for stating its laws and for transforming an equation into its solution, all within the language. ~ John Backus

And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God's language - it's better, it's finer, it's language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives. ~ Stephen King

People are rotten everywhere you go. They're no good. You want to see a very bad man? Make an ordinary man successful beyond his imagination. Let's see how good he is when he can do whatever he wants." Sunja ~ Min Jin Lee

Life's so ordinary that literature has to deal with the exceptional. Exceptional talent, power, social position, wealth ... Dramabegins where there's freedom of choice. And freedom of choice begins when social or psychological conditions are exceptional. That's why the inhabitants of imaginative literature have always been recruited from the pages of Who's Who. ~ Aldous Huxley

One thing we can know for sure is that when we are confessing our sin to God but not to the people around us in ordinary, nitty-gritty life, there is not much real spiritual transformation going on ~ Ruth Haley Barton

Contentment is the virtue that contrasts with restlessness, ambition, avarice. It means realizing, once again, that we are not our own - as pastors or parishioners, parents or children, employers or employees. It is the Lord's to give and to take away. He is building his church. It is his ministry that is saving and building up his body. Even our common callings in the world are not really our own, but they are God's work of supplying others - including ourselves - with what the whole society needs. There is a lot of work to be done, but it is his work that he is doing through us in daily and mostly ordinary ways. ~ Michael S. Horton

I don't particularly care about having [my characters] talk realistically, that doesn't mean very much to me. Actually, a lot of people speak more articulately than some critics think, but before the 20th century it really didn't occur to many writers that their language had to be the language of everyday speech. When Wordsworth first considered that in poetry, it was considered very much of a shocker. And although I'm delighted to have things in ordinary speech, it's not what I'm trying to perform myself at all: I want my characters to get their ideas across, and I want them to be articulate. ~ Louis Auchincloss

Happiness wasn't a mystical place to be reached or won
some bright terrain beyond the boundary of misery, a paradise waiting for them to find it
but something to carry doggedly with you through everything, as humble and ordinary as your gear and supplies. ~ Laini Taylor

Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane. ~ Bram Stoker

Well if I ever stick a cape on an' start usin' ordinary human bein's to wipe me arse with, you'll know you were right to worry, won't you? ~ Garth Ennis

Meek - free from the addiction to ordinary power - you can become a conduit of true divine power to the world. ~ Robert E. Barron

Lies, injustice, and hypocrisy are a part of every ordinary community. Most people achieve a sort of protective immunity, a kind of callousness, toward them. If they didn't, they couldn't endure. ~ Nella Larsen

Ordinary is the door for extraordinary. ~ Rajneesh

Just stick to the ordinary circumstances without labeling them ordinary. Be open to them with no desire to change them in any way. They are, in fact, already magical and miraculous. They are the revelation of the Absolute. The mountains, for instance, are already miracles. We don't need a little angel on top of the mountain to make it more miraculous, so don't make one up. ~ Francis Lucille

Nnu Ego was like those not-so well-informed Christians who,promised the Kingdom of Heaven,believed that it was literally just round the corner and that Jesus Christ was coming on the very morrow. Many of them would hardly contribute anything ton this world,reasoning, "What is the use? Christ will come soon" They became so insulated in their beliefs that not only would they have little to do with ordinary sinners,people going about their daily work, they even pitied them and in many cases looked down on them because the Kingdom of God was not for the likes of them. Maybe this was a protective mechanism devised to save them from realities too painful to accept. ~ Buchi Emecheta

We are not afraid of death," the suicide bombers say to show their superiority to ordinary people. But they are afraid of life, constantly trampling on it, slandering it, destroying it, and training children still in their cradles for martyrdom. Observers have noted that the photos of terrorists taken a few hours before they made their attacks show people who are serene and at peace. They have eliminated doubt: they know. It is the paradox of open societies that they seem to be disordered, unjust, threatened by crime, loneliness, and drugs because they display their indignity before the whole world, never ceasing to admit their defects, whereas other, more oppressive societies seem harmonious because the press and the opposition are muzzled.
"Where there are no visible conflicts, there is no freedom," Montesquieu said. ~ Pascal Bruckner

I know for myself how the fruits of the gospel of Jesus Christ can transform lives from the ordinary and dreary to the extraordinary and sublime. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I like writing people from a slightly sharp angle and then throwing more light on them. I think in life we see somebody and make judgments very quickly about who they are and what they are. Or we think people are boring because they appear ordinary. ~ Rachel Joyce

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 takes my face in his hands and presses his lips against mine – a tender, beautiful kiss – the kiss I've waited for forever. He quickly pulls his shirt over his head and my breath catches in my throat at the sight of his muscular body and smooth skin. He pushes Ordinary gently to the bottom of the bunk and climbs in next to me. Wrapping his arms around me, he lays his head next to mine. At last, we sleep.' ...from Notes on a Rebellion ~ Valentina Hepburn

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

But why? Why did someone kill you? Someone here, in this building, that we must use logic to deduce whom was the murderer...or murderess!" Rebonka scanned the crowd, and saw nothing out of the ordinary! She pleaded, on her knees, to all the ears who heard her, "Whom? Whom! Whom-done-it?! ~ Mark Gunk

Believe you have struck upon the problems of conspiracies. There are men who wish to keep you from uncovering the truth about this particular matter, but there are others who are only privately villainous and have their own little truths to hide. When you confront a conspiracy it becomes monstrous hard to distinguish between wretched villainy and ordinary, common lies. ~ David Liss

There are men, and women, Haung, who are possessed of skills beyond the ordinary. Some of these men can seem to be invisible, some to pass through walls, some are assassins of incredible skill, some swordsmen of incomparable greatness, some wise and peaceful. But each is special and I have ensured that each duke knows who they are and where they are. I am content to let these men live in peace, and to go about their business without any undue interference. There are times, in the past, and there may be again in the near future, when I will call upon them to do the Empire a service. I expect them to come and serve with all duty and honour. I have never been let down by them. In return, they are free to live and to be outside, within reason, the law of the Empire. This is the list of forbidden men, Haung. ~ G.R. Matthews

May we, as image makers, shapers of the culture, set our sights on things we value, rituals we engage in that heal and serve. May our images honor the ordinary endeavors of common people, and may they make their way to the eyes of the weary - light to the dark, fire to the chill. ~ Jan Phillips

A sensitive boy's humiliations may be very good fun for ordinary thick-skinned grown-ups; but to the boy himself theyareso acute, so ignominious, that he cannot confess themcannot but deny them passionately. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Then if it is denied that the unity at that level is the interconnection of the plurality or dissimilarity of religions as of parts constituting a whole, rather that every one of the religions at the level of ordinary existence is not part of a whole, but is a whole in itself-then the 'unity' that is meant is 'oneness' or 'sameness' not really of religions, but of the God of religions at the level of transcendence (i.e. esoteric), implying thereby that at the level of ordinary existence (i.e. exoteric), and despite the plurality and diversity of religions, each religion is adequate and valid in its own limited way, each authentic and conveying limited though equal truth. The notion of a plurality of truth of equal validity in the plurality and diversity of religion is perhaps aligned to the statements and general conclusions of modern philosophy and science arising from the discovery of a pluraity and diversity of laws governing the universe having equal validity each in its own cosmological system. The trend to align modern scientific discovery concerning the systems of the universe with corresponding statements applied to human society, cultural traditions,and values is one of the characteristic features of modernity.

The position of those who advocate the theory of the transcendent unity of religions is based upon the assumption that all religions, or the major religions of mankind, are revealed religions. They assume that the universality and transcendence of e ~ Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. ~ Stanley Milgram

By the 6th grade I stopped doing ordinary things in front of people. It had been ordinary to sing, kids are singing all the time when they are little, but then something happens. It's not that we stop singing. I still sang. I just made sure I was alone when I did it. And I made sure I never did it accidentally. That thing we call 'bursting into song.' I believe this happens to most of us. We are still singing, but secretly and all alone. ~ Lynda Barry

The difference between the mathematical and the intuitive mind. [1] - In the one the principles are palpable, but removed from ordinary use; so that for want of habit it is difficult to turn one's mind in that direction: but if one turns it thither ever so little, one sees the principles fully, and one must have a quite inaccurate mind who reasons wrongly from principles so plain that it is almost impossible they should escape notice. ~ Blaise Pascal

1. The cheerful horrors of inner reality amaze to the depths of the soul with the shock humor of evil. It's as if they are beating a shocker from whom you are laughing.
2. Laughter is an orgasm of awareness.
3. Science and art is a toy store. Created in order to occupy a person with something.
6. Loneliness is a catcher of erotic dreams.
7. Aphorism as a tattoo sticker in the mind.
8. You take off the mask of hypocrisy, and there are hundreds of billions of laughing monsters of monsters. They laugh in a smile of hatred; an ordinary person simply cannot stand so much awareness.
9. The idea appeared in a mirror maze and it is reflected in all the mirrors, that is, the opinion that the source cannot be found because it is hidden from your eyes. You see that opinion is a sect.
10. Laziness as an attraction a child's rocking machine is an illusion of movement. ~ Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

Any 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

One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool. ~ George Orwell

And if Annie's work is fueled by love, then it's a form of love that doesn't blunt or distort her gaze. Her love sharpens her sight. Her work has helped me trust that an enduring emotional investment - even in all its mess and mistakes, because of its mess and mistakes - can help you see more acutely. It can sensitize your gaze to the competing vectors of emotional churning beneath ordinary moments. ~ Leslie Jamison

Build peaks, and former highlands become flatlands--ordinary topography loses its allure. The attempt to make our lives not a waste, by seeking a few most remarkable incidents, will make the rest of our lives a waste. The concept of experience turns us into dwellers in a plateau village who hold on to a myth of the happier race of people who live on the peaks. We climb up occasionally, but only with preparation, for short expeditions. We can't stay there, and everyone is restless and unsatisfied at home. ~ Mark Greif

...printing and the proliferation of written materials allowed ordinary people to be members of any number of relational communities. ~ Wendy Griswold