The remarkable wish

"Nothing is so common-place as the wish to be remarkable."

Who said it?

If you follow blogs and message boards related to the new CBS crime drama Criminal Minds, you'll see folks who claim Gideon quoted Shakespeare, and there are those who think it was Hotchner.

Checking a handful of websites, I find that the same quote is attributed to Shakespeare and Oliver Wendell Holmes. (I wonder if Holmes' appropriation is considered fair use?)

Regardless of which TV character referenced the quote by Shakespeare or Holmes, I'm not sure I agree with either of them.

If the wish to be remarkable is common-place, how do we describe the overwhelming shortage of anything remarkable? Mediocrity is common-place. We raise the mundane and average to undeserved heights of honor and cheapen those people, places and things that truly are remarkable.

If everything is a BIG DEAL,
Nothing is a BIG DEAL.