Mere Mortals Quotes & Sayings

He looked up to the gods but never accepted their eternal superiority. For better or worse, plotting their overthrow was the only aspiration that stoked the fires of destiny. Such an exalted ambition was worthy of a man who had long accomplished the chore of dominating human minds. A man so terrified of finding himself alone in a stratosphere where no one could understand just how exceptional he was. In that place, the presumed existence of gods was a great comfort, especially in a profession in which his rivals were mere mortals. — Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers - the moon and the stars you set in place - 4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? — Anonymous

...You, you look -- bien -- exactly what you were, a high-ranking British officer, used to unwavering obedience and with the air of a Greek god, gazing down on us mere mortals. — Marguerite Kaye

If I can believe believe that the heavens have blessed me with a tiger-spirited daughter, then how can I doubt the existence of a Dragon Musado?" he said.

Kira didn't know how to react to her father's words.

"I believe that one person can change the world. Whether he is the Musado or a girl with a tiger spirit. The monks teach that we mere mortals cannot question fate. But I say that we control destiny by our every action. Our power lies in the choices we make." Her father placed his warm hand on her cheek. "In the choices you make. Remember, stay true to yourself and do what your heart tells you is right, and not what is easy. — Ellen Oh

Do not bank on mere mortals. Trust the One who will never fail you — Radhe Maa

O LORD, what are human beings that you should notice them, mere mortals that you should think about them? 4 For they are like a breath of air; their days are like a passing shadow. 5 Open the heavens, LORD, and come down. Touch the mountains so they billow smoke. 6 Hurl your lightning bolts and scatter your enemies! Shoot your arrows and confuse them! — Anonymous

There is an order
Of mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age,
Without the violence of warlike death;
Some perishing of pleasure, some of study,
Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness,
Some of disease, and some insanity,
And some of wither'd or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are number'd in the lists of Fate,
Taking all shapes and bearing many names. — George Gordon Byron

In its various forms, so far as we know them, Love seems always to have a deep significance and a most practical importance to us little mortals. In one form, as the mere semi-conscious Sex-love, which runs through creation and is common to the lowest animals and plants, it appears as a kind of organic basis for the unity of all creatures; in another, as the love of the mother for her offspring - which may also be termed a passion - it seems to pledge itself to the care and guardianship of the future race; in another, as the marriage of man and woman, it becomes the very foundation of human society. And so we can hardly believe that in its homogenic form, with which we are here concerned, it has not also a deep significance, and social uses and functions which will become clearer to us, the more we study it. — Edward Carpenter

author" meant "father," from the Latin word for "master," auctor. Auctor-ship implied authority, something that, in most of the world, had been the divine right of kings and religious leaders since Gilgamesh ruled Uruk four thousand years earlier. It was not to be shared with mere mortals. An "inventor," from invenire, "find," was a discoverer, not a creator, until the 1550s. "Credit," from credo, "trust," did not mean "acknowledgment" until the late sixteenth century. — Kevin Ashton

Some literary types subscribe to the notion that being a writer like Salinger entitles a person to remain free of the standards that might apply to mere mortals. — Joyce Maynard

Libations are for the gods. Cocktails are for mere mortals. — Jonathan Kieran

In fiction, as in real life, love might inspire acts that are at best foolish and at worst life-threatening, but in the best romances, love is the final, secret ingredient that turns mere mortals into heroes and heroines. — Sarah MacLean

But nothing is better than a truth which appears not to have the semblance of truth. There is always something incomprehensible about the great heroic deeds performed by humanity because they rise so far beyond the mediocre measure of mere mortals; but it is always only because of the incredible feats that human beings have accomplished that humanity recovers its faith in itself. — Stefan Zweig

Can't step from one movie set to the next. Only Samuel L. Jackson can do that. All us mere mortals can't do that! — Ice Cube

Parents are flawed human beings who are given a role that more approximates that of God than of mere mortals. — Dennis Prager

Men are always doomed to be duped, not so much by the arts of the other as by their own imagination. They are always wooing goddesses, and marrying mere mortals. — Washington Irving

There's a tendency to attribute magical skills and knowledge to people who've been elevated in some way - appearing on TV, or having an impressive title, or coming from a wealthy family. There's often an assumption that these people possess some rare, mysterious qualities mere mortals lack. What crap. — Arlene Dickinson

With our limited life spans, we mere mortals have to figure out what best to do with our time so that when it ends we aren't ashamed to put our name on it, call it our life. — Joey W. Hill

I respect people who have such passion. Emile was saying. I don't. I have a lot of interests, some I'm passionate about, but not to the exclusion of everything else. I sometimes wonder if that's necessary for geniuses to accomplish what they must, a singularity of purpose. We mere mortals just get in the way. Relationships are messy, distracting.
He travels the fastest who travels alone, quoted Gamache.
You sound as though you don't believe it.
It depends where you're going, but no, I don't. I think you might go far fast, but eventually you'll stall. We need other people.
...
We all need help. — Louise Penny

I am a great champion; when I ran the ground shook and the sky opened and mere mortals parted the way to victory, and I met my owner in the winners circle where he put a blanket of flowers on my back — Dreamer

And the reason is found in the first lie-the lie which you hold as the truth about God-that God cannot be trusted; that God's love cannot be depended upon; that God's acceptance of you is conditional; that the ultimate outcome is thus in doubt. For if you cannot depend on God's love to always be there, on whose love can you depend? If God retreats and withdraws when you do not perform properly, will not mere mortals also? — Neale Donald Walsch

A woman, even a brilliant woman, must have two qualities in order to fulfill her promise: more energy than mere mortals, and the ability to outwit her culture. — Margaret Mead

Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Sam could not help but be pleased. "So. Astrid needs me." Brianna rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Sam, you're still necessary. You're like a god to us mere mortals. We can't live without you. Later we're going to build you a temple. Satisfied? — Michael Grant

In mortals there is a care for trifles which proceeds from love and conscience, and is most holy; and a care for trifles which comes of idleness and frivolity, and is most base. And so, also, there is a gravity proceeding from thought, which is most noble; and a gravity proceeding from dulness and mere incapability of enjoyment, which is most base. — John Ruskin

You're right. So right. My heart is a god among mere mortals. A queen among peons. A rock star among the masses. There's nothing to worry about. Everything will be okay. — Nicole Williams

I especially love the way he moves, like a young god who takes his time walking because he wants mere mortals like me to bask in his perfection. — Marian Tee

What's different about you? Why does it make you a pussy if you get help, but not the rest of the team? Oh, I get it. You're the Cobra. You get within striking distance of the enemy, and it's over. But if it all goes sideways and the wrong men die, you don't need help like the rest of us mere mortals. — Pamela Clare

You are way too pretty to exist in this world with us mere mortals. I somehow managed to stop myself from calling him Knight Delicious Face. It was close. — T.J. Klune

In truth, the belief in "government" is a religion, made up of a set of dogmatic teachings, irrational doctrines which fly in the face of both evidence and logic, and which are methodically memorized and repeated by the faithful. Like other religions, the gospel of "government" describes a superhuman, supernatural entity, above mere mortals, which issues commandments to the peasantry, for whom unquestioning obedience is a moral imperative. — Larken Rose

The Tuatha De do not speak of Tuatha De matter to"
he gave her an icy sneer
"mere mortals."
"Well, mister-mere-mortal-yourself," she bristled right back at him, "maybe you'd better get used to it, because whether or not you like it, you need at least one of us 'mere mortals' to help you become a pompous-asshole-fairy-thing again."
He tried to maintain his icy stare, but his lips curved despite his efforts and he shook with silent laughter. A pompous-asshole-fairy-thing. The indignity of it. Had any of his race ever been called such a thing? Nothing cowed the woman. Nothing. "Point made, ky-lyrra," he said dryly.
-Gabrielle and Adam — Karen Marie Moning

Remember that we are not gods who can fashion events to our desires. We are mere mortals who must learn not to contend with life but to yield to it. — Bette Bao Lord

No one, it appears, took up his offer to commercialize his invention; like other inventions of his, it worked well for him, but mere mortals found the instructions too complicated. — Morton N. Cohen

For what can more partake of the mysterious than an antipathy spontaneous and profound such as is evoked in certain exceptional mortals by the mere aspect of some other mortal, however harmless he may be, if not called forth by this very harmlessness itself? — Herman Melville

You may not mean to, but you do seem to look down your nose at many of us mere mortals muddling along down here. I feel as though you think everyone should be better than they are. I certainly think you expect me to behave like some sort of perfect princess. But I'm just an ordinary girl who wants to grow up and find out where I belong in the world. — Emily Arden

Since the beginning of time, we have expected our leaders to be supermen, unlike mere mortals. We want them to be much greater than us so that we can look up to them. — Jonathan Powell

Men are mere mortals but their quest for knowledge leads them to the brink of immortality."

Excerpt from novel You Can't Escape Love by Grace Willows — Grace Willows

I think that not only do saints make poor role models, they are incapable in one sense of identifying radically with those of us who are mere mortals. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s mortality says to us that here's a figure who got up every day of his life facing tremendous odds and yet overcame them. — Michael Eric Dyson

That you always need to look closer at people's lives. You can't just assume that just because they have beauty and wealth that they aren't touched by tragedy, heartbreak, cheating, and everything else that plagues us mere mortals. They put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. — Annie Jocoby

The power of belief, of God is beyond what mere mortals can Imagine. There is no restrictions in my Life. If I do what I love, work night and day, and I'm open to the spirits. that's when the "Greats" take over. — Richard Cabral

Pulling a crystalline, cogent rule out of the murk of the court's First Amendment, public forum, and Establishment Clause doctrine is an act of creation too complicated for mere mortals. — Dahlia Lithwick

Intellect is not sexed; ... strength of mind is not sexed; and ... our views about the duties of men and the duties of women, the sphere of man and the sphere of woman, are mere arbitrary opinions, differing in different ages and countries, and dependent solely on the will and judgment of erring mortals. — Sarah Moore Grimke

17You, LORD, hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, 18defending the fatherless and the oppressed, so that mere earthly mortals will never again strike terror. — Anonymous

The endless ocean was his sole companion , and on some deeply sentimental level, it seemed sufficient. Almost apt. He aligned himself with Thoreau and Tolstoy, he felt like their peers. The kinship with nature devoted humans to a mythical state, a heightened persona beyond the reach of mere mortals. At least that was what he told himself on the lonely nights when insomnia played on his fears and the howling wind pierced through his soul. — Adelheid Manefeldt

Friend, many and many a dream is mere confusion a cobweb of no consequence at all. Two gates for ghostly dreams there are: One gateway of honest horn, and one of ivory. Issuing by the ivory gate are dreams of glimmering illusion, fantasies, but those that come through solid polished horn may be borne out, if mortals only know them. — Homer

The thing was all mortals were going to lose the ones they loved. It was the way life worked. But for the most of the time, that reality was so far off in the mind that it had no more weight than a mere hypothetical. There were reminders, however, and the almost's, the near-misses, the oh-God-please-no's, snapped your chain and got you to stop and feel what was in your heart. — J.R. Ward

Many theologians believe the Gospel writers include miracle stories in order to prove that Jesus is divine. But miracles are not proof of deity. Many Old Testament prophets heal people and even raise them from the dead, yet they are mere mortals. Jesus's miracle ministry is a demonstration that the kingdom of God has arrived. Heaven on Earth, pg. 105. — R. Alan Streett

O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens. 2 You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength,[*] silencing your enemies and all who oppose you. 3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers - the moon and the stars you set in place - 4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?[*] 5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God[*] and crowned them[*] with glory and honor. 6 You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority - 7 the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, 8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents. 9 O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! — Anonymous

God seemed to be having a hard time killing him, and he'd be damned if he was going to make the job easy for mere mortals — Mario Puzo

Sachin Tendulkar is a genius. I'm a mere mortal. — Brian Lara

Watergate got us to think of leaders as mere mortals. America began to think of itself in a very different way - I would say a salutary way - and Reagan was most important in shifting the grand dynamic thrust of the American historical process by ending that. — Rick Perlstein

The record business has always mystified me. Sometimes there are reasons why things sell or don't sell that can't be understood by mere mortals. — Paul Shaffer

The state is an organization of mere mortals who, by one dubious method or another, have been allowed to don the mantle of political legitimacy and to command obedience on pain of imprisonment even of those who never consented to the preposterous arrangement. — Sheldon Richman

There was nothing I could do but squirm faster and try to trust Adrian, who was surely one of the most competent mere mortals I'd met in years. He had a (small, girlie) gun, he had his wits, and he had ... I don't know. Maybe a silver bikini under his commando-wear, for all I knew. — Cherie Priest

There's a certain pattern that exists with geniuses - an eccentricity, a lack of social graces and an inability to really communicate with mere mortals. — John Noble

Well, that's a very interesting question," he said - to which he had no interesting or even sane answer. He simply conceded that if the Messiah came back and reconvened the Sanhedrin, well, then, yes - though mere mortals like ourselves might not see the wisdom of it - homosexuals, adulteresses, witches, and Sabbath breakers would be killed, and every other barbaric prescription found in the Old Testament would apply. As I was contemplating where on his person I should aim my vomit, he managed this final defense of his religion: "You just don't understand what an obscenity - what a sacrilege - these things would represent in the presence of the Messiah — Sam Harris