Ordinary Men Quotes

There is a darkness in you. In all of us, probably. Beasts we keep chained. Ordinary men have to keep the chains strong, for if we let the beast loose then society will turn upon us with fiery vengeance. Kings though ... well, who is there to turn upon them? So the chains are made of straw. It is the curse of kings, Helikaon, that they can become monsters. And they invariably do. ~ David Gemmell

Ordinary men and women may often feel unmotivated to exert their citizenship, either because they cannot tell the difference between the different alternatives, or because they have lost faith in the political classes, or because they feel that the really important issues are not in their power to decide. ~ Patricio Aylwin

At eight-thirty that night Ian stood on the steps outside Elizabeth's uncle's town house suppressing an almost overwhelming desire to murder Elizabeth's butler, who seemed to be inexplicably fighting down the impulse to do bodily injury to Ian. "I will ask you again, in case you misunderstood me the last time," Ian enunciated in a silky, ominous tone that made ordinary men blanch. "Where is your mistress?"
Bentner didn't change color by so much as a shade. "Out!" he informed the man who'd ruined his young mistress's life and had now appeared on her doorstep, unexpected and uninvited, no doubt to try to ruin it again, when she was at this very moment attending her first ball in years and trying bravely to live down the gossip he had caused.
"She is out, but you do not know where she is?"
"I did not say so, did I?"
"Then where is she?"
"That is for me to know and you to ponder."
In the last several days Ian had been forced to do a great many unpleasant things, including riding across half of England, dealing with Christina's irate father, and finally dealing with Elizabeth's repugnant uncle, who had driven a bargain that still infuriated him. Ian had magnanimously declined her dowry as soon as the discussion began. Her uncle, however, had the finely honed bargaining instincts of a camel trader, and he immediately sensed Ian's determination to do whatever was necessary to get Julius's name on a betrothal contract. As a result, Ian was the first man ~ Judith McNaught

His thoughts inhabit a different plane from those of ordinary men; the simplest interpretation of that is to call him crazy. ~ Juliet Marillier

It is rather astonishing how little practical value scientific knowledge has for ordinary men, how dull and commonplace such of it as has value is, and how its value seems almost to vary inversely to its reputed utility. ~ G.H. Hardy

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

Ordinary men live among marvels and feel no wonder, grow familiar with objects and learn nothing new about them. ~ George Henry Lewes

Thus, what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge. ~ Sun Tzu

Ordinary men, to whom all things are possible, don't often, if ever, think of Heaven. It is a name, and nothing more, and they are content to wait and let things be, but to those who are doomed to be shut out for ever you cannot think what it means, you cannot guess or measure the terrible endless longing to see the gates opened, and to be able to join the white figures within. ~ Bram Stoker

An ordinary man seeks freedom through enlightenment. An enlightened man expresses freedom through being ordinary. ~ Adyashanti

The philosophy which affects to teach us a contempt of money does not run very deep; for, indeed, it ought to be still more clear to the philosopher than it is to ordinary men, that there are few things in the world of greater importance. ~ Henry Taylor

What was magic, after all, but something that happened at the snap of a finger? Where was the magic in that? It was mumbled words and weird drawings in old books, and in the wrong hands it was as dangerous as hell, but not one half as dangerous as it could be in the right hands. The universe was full of the stuff; it made the stars stay up and the feet stay down.

But what was happening now . . . this was magical. Ordinary men had dreamed it up and put it together, building towers on rafts in swamps and across the frozen spines of mountains. They'd cursed and, worse, used logarithms. They'd waded through rivers and dabbled in trigonometry. They hadn't dreamed, in the way people usually used the word, but they'd imagined a different world, and bent metal around it. And out of all the sweat and swearing and mathematics had come this . . . thing, dropping words across the world as softly as starlight. ~ Terry Pratchett

The sun flickers through the trees and shines upon the faces of the men lined up on the porches. Soldiers no more, just ordinary men who, by the grace of God, were spared to tell their stories ~ Nancy B. Brewer

Although the semicircle of the Moon is placed above the circle of the Sun and would appear to be superior, nevertheless we know that the Sun is ruler and King. We see that the Moon in her shape and her proximity rivals the Sun with her grandeur, which is apparent to ordinary men, yet the face, or a semi-sphere of the Moon, always reflects the light of the Sun. ~ John Dee

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

I like the tradition of ordinary men in extraordinary circumstances and how they react to events which force them to be heroic in a way that is not in their natures. ~ Rob Lowe

[ The Finest Hours] reminded me a lot of a film I did called Unstoppable in that you have a driving thriller aspect of the film and it's not all that complicated of a story and there's a simple elegance to it. I liked that. It is also driven by a really strong romance and ordinary men doing extraordinary things. I love that. ~ Chris Pine

That's why I stand here tonight. Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors - found the courage to keep it alive. ~ Barack Obama

Great men simplify great principles and make them easily intelligible to ordinary men ~ Tunku Abdul Rahman

We might even say that the one thing which separates a saint from ordinary men is his readiness to be one with ordinary men. In this sense the word ordinary must be understood in its native and noble meaning; which is connected with the word order. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Ordinary men with extraordinary power
Common men with uncommon results
Usual men with unusual anointing
Unschooled mortal men with immortal vision
Weak men with mighty deeds
-Insight for Fruitful Living ~ Ikechukwu Joseph

He had heard that women often love plain ordinary men, but he did not believe it, because he judged by himself and he could only love beautiful mysterious exceptional women. ~ Leo Tolstoy

What was this blight that had come down over the people she loved? Did she see it in stark relief because she had been away from it? Had it percolated gradually through the years until now? Had it always been under her nose for her to see if she had only looked? No, not the last. What turned ordinary men into screaming dirt at the top of their voices, what made her kind of people harden and say "nigger" when the word had never crossed their lips before? ~ Harper Lee

Ordinary men wonder why those of only average intelligence so often rise to the highest levels of power, while highly intelligent people generally do not. They fail to understand that reaching the highest levels of power has nothing to do with admired attributes such as intelligence and competence. The predominant characteristic of those who rise to the highest levels of power is a total disregard for the consequences – including death – that will befall thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of human beings if it is deemed necessary to attain his (or her) goals. Generally speaking, it is this total disregard for humanity that has distinguished 'rulers' throughout history. ~ Dave Champion

You are not a man as ordinary men are. They think they have a right to all beasts; to hunt them and eat them, or to subjugate them and rule their lives. You know you have no such right to mastery. The horse that carries you will do so because he wishes to, as does the wolf that hunts beside you. You have a deeper sense of yourself in the world. You believe you have a right, not to rule it, but to be part of it. Predator or prey; there is no shame to being either one. ~ Robin Hobb

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

It is nothing more than a mere handful of thoughtful words unfettered by tarnished agendas, tempered by wisdom, ordered by truth, and arranged into simple syntax that have empowered ordinary men to do utterly extraordinary things. And I am thankful that I am an ordinary man who loves words. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Now the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men is foreknowledge. ~ Sun Tzu

But alas, the most terrifying aspect of the whole fascist episode is the dark fact that most of its poisons are generated not by evil men or evil peoples, but by quite ordinary men in search of an answer to the baffling problems that beset every society. Nothing could have been further from the minds of most of them than the final brutish and obscene result. The gangster comes upon the stage only when the scene has been made ready for him by his blundering precursors. ~ John T. Flynn

The conservative does not defend the Old Regime; he speaks on behalf of old regimes - in the family, the factory, the field. There, ordinary men, and sometimes women, get to play the part of little lords and ladies, supervising their underlings as if they all belong to a feudal estate . . . The task of this type of conservatism---democratic feudalism - -becomes clear: surround these old regimes with fences and gates, protect them from meddlesome intruders like the state or a social movement, while descanting on mobility and innovation, freedom and the future. ~ Corey Robin

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

She can't have understood you: you are so utterly different from ordinary men. That's what I liked about you when I first saw you; I felt at once that you weren't like everybody else. ~ Marcel Proust

With ordinary men the moments which are united in a close continuity out of the original discrete multiplicity are very few, and the course of their lives resembles a little brook, whereas with the genius it is more like a mighty river into which all the little rivulets flow from afar; that is to say, the universal comprehension of genius vibrates to no experience in which all the individual moments have not been gathered up and stored. ~ Otto Weininger

What changed these very ordinary men (who were such cowards that they did not dare stand too near the cross in case they got involved) into heroes who would stop at nothing? A swindle? Hallucination? Spooky nonsense in a darkened room? Or Somebody quietly doing what He said He'd do - walk right through death? What do you think? ~ John Bertram Phillips

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

Charlotte was used to all the marks of war: the shabbiness of things, bad food, shop queues, posters about the war effort, people with worried faces, people dressed in black. She was used to seeing the wounded men from the hospital with their bright blue uniforms and bright red ties, the colours, she thought, if not the clothes of Arthur's soldiers. Such things did not disturb her, and the war seemed quite remote. But this disturbed her, the grotesque kind of circus that came now. It did not seem remote at all, nor did it fit with her vague ideas of war gained from those books of Arthur's she had read, with their flags and glory and brave drummer boys. How could you dare to become a soldier, knowing that you might end like this? There were men like clowns with white heads, white arms, white legs, men with crutches, slings, and bloodied bandages, and all so distressingly like men you would expect to see walking down the street, two armed, two legged, in hats instead of bandages and suits of black not battered khaki. Some came on stretchers borne by whole and ordinary men, some hobbled and leaned on whole ordinary arms. Most had mud dried thick across their clothes, and all came from the dark station's mouth with the spewings of trains behind, the clankings, thumpings, grindings, the sounds like great devils taking in breaths and blowing them out again. ~ Penelope Farmer

Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much. ~ Walter Savage Landor

Children play at being great and wonderful people, at the ambitions they will put away for one reason or another before they grow into ordinary men and women. Mankind as a whole had a like dream once; everybody and nobody built up the dream bit by bit, and the ancient story-tellers are there to make us remember what mankind would have been like, had not fear and the failing will and the laws of nature tripped up its heels. The Fianna and their like are themselves so full of power, and they are set in a world so fluctuating and dream-like, that nothing can hold them from being all that the heart desires.
from a preface to
Gods and Fighting Men
by Lady Augusta Gregory ~ W.B.Yeats

monsters always look just like ordinary men. ~ Deborah Harkness

All the controversialists who have become conscious of the real issue are already saying of our ideal exactly what used to be said of the Socialists' ideal. They are saying that private property is too ideal not to be impossible. They are saying that private enterprise is too good to be true. They are saying that the idea of ordinary men owning ordinary possessions is against the laws of political economy and requires an alteration in human nature. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Sir, sometimes I feel there are no heroes, no villains. Just men, ordinary men locked up by circumstances, good or bad. This I truly believe, and I suggest that you believe it too. ~ Terry Pratchett

To do what you want is not a privilege. It is a curse. It is the curse of ordinary men. Men with no responsibilities do whatever they want. Common men with no value and self worth do whatever they want. Men whose lives have no worthy purpose are free to do whatever they want. Not you. You are a prince for whom a heavy crown and a powerful throne await. You do not do whatever you want; you do what must be done.- King Chuka ~ Ray Anyasi

In the old days, people told their kids stories about the big, bad wolf, and men who were especially cruel and horrible were said to be like animals, maybe werewolves. But the things ordinary men do every day are a million times worse than anything a wolf would do. A wolf would never torture another animal to death, or lock it up. They kill out of instinct, in order to survive, because they have to - not because they just feel like it, not because they're evil. Not like us. Man is the scariest animal on the planet, but from the beginning of time, the wolf has gotten the bad rap. We've tried to pretend that evil is out there, lurking inside animals beyond the campfire, and not where it really is, in here.' He [Cody] tapped his chest. ~ Lisa Tuttle

The universe was not created through illogical assumptions of law. Law is its foundation. There are no miracles in science. Jesus did no miracles. All His marvelous works were done under laws that we may learn and use as He did. As the body is moved by mind, so the mind is moved by ideas; and right here in the mind we find the secret of the universe. This is where Jesus differed from ordinary men: He knew He was the Son of God; He knew the power of spiritual ideas to do mighty works: "The Father abiding in me doeth his works. ~ Charles Fillmore

The kind of cruelty Ernie showed today scares me, reminds me and warns me not to forget what men are capable of. And not even bad men. Just ordinary men. The ~ Lauren Nicolle Taylor

He had heard that women often did care for ugly and ordinary men, but he did not believe it, for he judged by himself, and he could not himself have loved any but beautiful, mysterious, and exceptional women. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Newton was a genius, but not because of the superior computational power of his brain. Newton's genius was, on the contrary, his ability to simplify, idealize, and streamline the world so that it became, in some measure, tractable to the brains of perfectly ordinary men. ~ Gerald Weinberg

No great monument has been built to honor those who served during the Cold War, who risked their lives and sometimes lost them in the name of freedom. It was ordinary men and women, not just diplomats and statesmen, who helped to avert a nuclear holocaust. Their courage and their sacrifices should be remembered. ~ Eric Schlosser

For ourselves, who are ordinary men and women, let us return thanks to Nature for her bounty by using every one of the senses she has given us. ~ Virginia Woolf

What interests me is the experience of ordinary people. To tell you the truth, although I can repeat certain dates, statistics, and so on, what I am really curious about is what happens to ordinary men, women, and children in extraordinary times. ~ Jacqueline Winspear

Father argued that society as a whole must come to be organized on a different basis than greed, for while material interests gained somewhat by the institutionalized deification of pure selfishness, ordinary men and women lost everything by it. ~ Russell Banks

Positivist man is a curious creature who dwells in the tiny island of light composed of what he finds scientifically "meaningful," while the whole surrounding area in which ordinary men live from day to day and have their dealings with other men is consigned to the outer darkness of the "meaningless." Positivism has simply accepted the fractured being of modern man and erected a philosophy to intensify it.
Existentialism, whether successfully or not, has attempted instead to gather all the elements of human reality into a total picture of man. Positivist man and Existentialist man are no doubt offspring of the same parent epoch, but, somewhat as Cain and Abel were, the brothers are divided unalterably by temperament and the initial choice they make of their own being. ~ William Barrett

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

I fear that we live in a world in which war and racism are ubiquitous, in which the powers of government mobilization and legitimization are powerful and increasing, in which a sense of personal responsibility is increasingly attenuated by specialization and bureaucratization, and in which the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets moral norms. In such a world, I fear, modern governments that wish to commit mass murder will seldom fail in their efforts for being unable to induce "ordinary men" to become their "willing executioners. ~ Christopher R. Browning

Heroes are ordinary men and women who dare to see and meet the call of a possibility bigger than themselves. Breakthroughs are created by such heroes, by men and women who will stand for the result while it is only a possibility - people who will act to make possibility real. ~ Werner Erhard

The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways. ~ Tahir Shah

Everything was deathly quiet. The eyes were the most terrifying: the eyes of dinosaurus; the eyes of trilobites and ants; the eyes of birds and butterflies; the eyes of bacteria... The humans alone possessed one hundred billion pairs of eyes, equal to the number of stars in the Milky Way, Among them were the eyes of ordinary men and women, and the eyes of Da Vinci, Shakespeare, and Einstein. ~ Liu Cixin

If you wish to succeed as a leader, you should be capable of transforming the souls of people, which control their intellect, mind and body. A good leader transforms the souls of the people, which then become like his own soul...
Once the nature of the followers is changed, they 'willingly' follow the path of their leader
A leader transforms ordinary men into exceptionally powerful people just like a strong magnet transforms an ordinary piece of iron into a powerful magnet. ~ Awdhesh Singh

Choice word and measured phrase above the reach Of ordinary men. ~ William Wordsworth

Right thinking is necessarily an open process, and the only science and history of full value to men consist of what is generally and clearly known; this is surely a platitude, but we have still to discover how to preserve our centres of philosophy and research from the caking and darkening accumulations of narrow and dingy-spirited specialists. We have still to ensure that a man of learning shall be none the less a man of affairs, and that all that can be thought and known is kept plainly, honestly, and easily available to the ordinary men and women who are the substance of mankind. The ~ H.G.Wells

That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in. and the best of me is diligence. ~ William Shakespeare

Who knows, my lady?" he said. "Maybe one day when you're a grown woman, your beauty will make Zeus himself fall in love with you and put your image up there as well, for us ordinary men to see and envy."
"I can think of better reasons to end up among the stars," I said, smiling at such harmless flattery. ~ Esther M. Friesner

How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, *Principiis obsta* and *Finem respice* - 'Resist the beginnings' and 'Consider the end.' But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? ~ Milton Sanford Mayer

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

Greatness does not approach him who is forever looking down". My eyes are seeing through what the ordinary men call a mirage! ~ Bayode Ojo

Under relentless prosecutorial grilling he sputtered that he had earlier deceived investigators "because I was an idiot," and he finally admitted that he had lied about nothing less than a treasonable overture. That lie he could not explain - but Bird and Sherwin attempt to explain it by citing a remark Oppenheimer made five years earlier to a Communist graduate student and friend of his, in which he admitted "his tendency when things get too much" to blurt out "irrational things." How difficult it must have been for an intellectual of his abilities, pride, and accomplishment to make such an admission ordinary men can only imagine. ~ Algis Valiunas

In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves - the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state. ~ G.K. Chesterton

In a sport like this - hard work, not much glory, but still popular in every century - well, there must be some beauty which ordinary men can't see, but extraordinary men do. - George Yeoman Pocock ~ Daniel James Brown

God does not want a church filled with white-robed saints. He does not want a church filled with theological authorities or cultured clergyman. He wants a church filled with ordinary men and women who exemplify the extraordinary integrity, temperament, wholeness, compassion, individuality, boldness, righteousness, earnestness, love, forgiveness, selflessness, and faithfulness of Jesus Christ! ~ Ray Stedman

The multitude of men look satisfied and pleased; as if enjoying a full banquet, as if mounted on a tower in spring. I alone seem listless and still, my desires having as yet given no indication of their presence. I am like an infant which has not yet smiled. I look dejected and forlorn, as if I had no home to go to. The multitude of men all have enough and to spare. I alone seem to have lost everything. My mind is that of a stupid man; I am in a state of chaos.
Ordinary men look bright and intelligent, while I alone seem to be benighted. They look full of discrimination, while I alone am dull and confused. I seem to be carried about as on the sea, drifting as if I had nowhere to rest. All men have their spheres of action, while I alone seem dull and incapable, like a rude borderer.
(Thus) I alone am different from other men, but I value the nursing-mother (the Tao). ~ Lao-Tzu

The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

There are no heroes, Tian Haoli. Grand Secretary Shi was both courageous and cowardly, capable and foolish. Wang Xiuchu was both an opportunistic survivor and a man of greatness of spirit. I'm mostly selfish and vain, but sometimes even I surprise myself. We're all just ordinary men - well, I'm an ordinary demon - faced with extraordinary choices. In those moments, sometimes heroic ideals demand that we become their avatars. ~ Ken Liu

What ordinary men are directly aware of and what they try to do are bounded by the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their powers are limited. ~ C. Wright Mills

Democracy is about the conditions that make it possible for ordinary people to better their lives by becoming political beings and by making power responsive to their hopes and needs. What is at stake in democratic politics is whether ordinary men and women can recognize that their concerns are best protected and cultivated under a regime whose actions are governed by principles of commonality, equality, and fairness, a regime in which taking part in politics becomes a way of staking out and sharing in a common life and its forms of self-fulfillment. Democracy is not about bowling together but about managing together those powers that immediately and significantly affect the lives and circumstances of others and one's self. ~ Sheldon S. Wolin

Patience is a godly attribute that can heal souls, unlock treasures of knowledge and understanding, and transform ordinary men and women into saints and angels. Patience is truly a fruit of the Spirit. Patience means staying with something until the end. It means delaying immediate gratification for future blessings. ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The holiness of love inspired ordinary men and women to act like angels. It lifted them on wings closer to God. ~ Nancy Holder

Smoking comforts ordinary men, but I'm not an ordinary man. There aren't many like me left. And it's a good thing for the world that there isn't. There'll always be a few of us in America in every generation. Because only a great country like America can produce men like me. I'm not a thinker, I'm a doer. ~ Charles Willeford

Among our own people also the church sorely needs clergy in close touch with the ordinary life of the laity, living the life of ordinary men, sharing their difficulties and understanding their trials by close personal experience. ~ Roland Allen

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

We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women. ~ Carl Jung

We need to remember that the first disciples were ordinary men called to an extraordinary mission. Their devotion to Jesus outweighed- by hair- their fears and insecurities. As a result God change them and use them to accomplish some mind-boggling things. Why couldn't God - why wouldn't God do the same in your life? ~ Max Lucado

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 tantalizing discomfort of perplexity is what inspires otherwise ordinary men and women to extraordinary feats of ingenuity and creativity; nothing quite focuses the mind like dissonant details awaiting harmonious resolution. ~ Brian Greene

For most of human history, 'literature,' both fiction and poetry, has been narrated, not written - heard, not read. So fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women whose labor created our world. ~ Angela Carter

He realized that the path of love, which Bertlef had suggested, was closed to him; it was the path of saints, not of ordinary men. ~ Milan Kundera

Though the parallel is not complete, it is safe to say that science will never touch them unaided by its practical applications. Its wonders may be catalogued for purposes of education, they may be illustrated by arresting experiments, by numbers and magnitudes which startle or fatigue the imagination but they will form no familiar portion of the intellectual furniture of ordinary men unless they be connected, however remotely, with the conduct of ordinary life. ~ Arthur Balfour

Great men learn from their weaknesses,
and learn to use their strengths.
Ordinary men learn nothing from their weaknesses,
and underuse their strengths. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Whenever justice to ordinary men, widows, orphans, poor, disadvantaged and the general mass is delayed or denied, that leads to God's frustration. At a time like that, God laments, WHERE IS A MAN ~ Sunday Adelaja

The misdeeds of ordinary men can be buried with them, and their lives described in half-truths that are really half-lies. But not a public man. Particularly not this one. ~ Anna Quindlen

Our civilization has decided, and very justly decided, that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. It wishes for light upon that awful matter, it asks men who know no more law than I know, but who can feel the thing that I felt in that jury box. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity. ~ G.K. Chesterton

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

What is it with these prophets? Almost without exception ordinary men, some of them with more vices than virtues, suddenly they were touched with fire.

Is it that a man sees best the stars when he is prone? ~ Little Pigeon

To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that which shows what it might become. America
this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into the 'yes'
needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it. ~ Cornel West

More than one soldier wondered if, at last, the French had found a magician of their own; the French infantrymen appeared much taller than ordinary men and the light in their eyes as they drew closer burnt with an almost supernatural fury. But this was only the magic of Napoleon Buonaparte, who knew better than any one how to dress his soldiers so they would terrify the enemy, and how to deploy them so that any onlooker would think them indestructible. ~ Susanna Clarke

Both men and women who have children as a rule regulate their lives largely with reference to them, and children cause perfectly ordinary men and women to act unselfishly in certain ways, of which perhaps life insurance is the most definite and measurable. ~ Bertrand Russell

Success only means doing something sincerely and wholeheartedly. I think life is a process. Through the ages, the end of heroes is the same as ordinary men. They all died and gradually faded away in the memory of man. But when we are still alive, we have to understand ourselves, discover ourselves and express ourselves. In this way, we can progress, but we may not be successful. ~ Bruce Lee

Ordinary men commit extraordinary evil all the time. Trust me. ~ Mindy Mejia

Everybody has seen what happens when an ordinary person takes on a title or an office. When a new president is inaugurated, he takes on the awe and respect of his office and begins to act like a president. Ordinary men (and I would certainly hope, one day, ordinary women)...lose their old roles and become the president. ~ Kaleel Jamison

What man have you ever seen who was contented with one crime only? ~ Juvenal

Her gaze cut over to Drake with a knowing half smile, then back to the captain. "You see, captain, dead men tell me all kinds of tales. ~ Lisa Kessler