Canned Wisdom 

Even though 'the ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit' (W. Somerset Maugham), sometimes the silliness of sayings people go wow and oooh over is simply amazing. Take Cicero's 'Beautiful is rare', for example. I hate to disagree with the old master of rhetoric, but isn't that because it is actually the other way around? Because we get used to things to which we're exposed very often, and stop even noticing them, let alone thinking them beautiful? There are very beautiful, and very non-rare things all around us, we've just stopped seeing them...