Common Sense Quotes - Page 23

• The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true, though they may not recommend themselves to the sense which is most common among Englishmen and Americans to-day. It is not every truth that recommends itself to the common sense. Nature has a place for the wild clematis as well as for the cabbage. Some expressions of truth are reminiscent,--others merely sensible, as the phrase is,--others prophetic.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Dream, Truth, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.406, Penguin

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• I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Men, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Ernest Spiller, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Joseph Slater, Jean Ferguson Carr (1971). “The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.215, Harvard University Press

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• Like other high subjects, the Law gives no ground to common sense.

  Mason Cooley

  Law, Giving, Subjects

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• When we consider the promises of Christ, risking everything we are and everything we have for His sake is no longer a matter of sacrifice. It's just common sense.

  David Platt

  Sacrifice, Promise, Matter

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• It is always singular, but encouraging, to meet with common sense in very old books, as the Heetopades of Veeshnoo Sarma; a playful wisdom which has eyes behind as well as before, and oversees itself. It asserts their health and independence of the experience of later times. This pledge of sanity cannot be spared in a book, that it sometimes pleasantly reflect upon itself.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Eye, Independence

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.103, Xist Publishing

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• Common sense is the genius of mankind.

  Francois Guizot

  Genius, Common, Mankind

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• It's actually a tribute to the quality of economics teaching that they have persuaded so many generations of students to believe in so much that seems so counter to what the world is like. Many of the things that I'm going to describe make so much more common sense than these notions that seem counter to what one's eyes see every day.

  Joseph Stiglitz

  Believe, Teaching, Eye

  "Information and the Change in the Paradigm in Economics". Nobel Prize Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 08, 2001.

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• I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and out of all of this I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can. I shall not speak much for fear of saying foolish things; I will risk still less for fear of doing them, for I am not disposed to abuse the confidence which they have deigned to show me. Such is the conduct which until now I have followed and will follow.

  Marquis de Lafayette

  Ideas, Risk, Abuse

  "George Washington's Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership" by George Athan Billias, (p. 219), 1994.

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• Economy denotes the the proper management of materials and of site, as well as a thrifty balancing of cost and common sense in the construction of works. ...the architect does not demand things which cannot be found or made ready without great expense. For example: it is not everywhere that there is plenty of pitsand, rubble, fir, clear fir, and marble... Where there is no pitsand, we must use the kinds washed up by rivers or by the sea... and other problems we must solve in similar ways.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Sea, Rivers, Use

  "De architectura". Book by Vitruvius. Book I, Chapter II, Section 8,

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• Common sense is not really so common.
  The Art of Thinking: Port-Royal Logic

  Antoine Arnauld

  Art, Thinking, Royal

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• All that the Y.M.C.A.'s horse and rings really accomplished was to fill me with an ineradicable distaste, not only for Christian endeavor in all its forms, but also for every variety of calisthenics, so that I still begrudge the trifling exertion needed to climb in and out of a bathtub, and hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense. If I had my way no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust or profit under the United States, and all female athletes would be shipped to the white-slave corrals of the Argentine.

  H. L. Mencken

  Christian, Sports, Horse

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• The editors are committed to nothing save this: to keep common sense as fast as they can, to belabor sham as agreeably as possible, to give civilized entertainment.

  H. L. Mencken

  Editors, Giving, Entertainment

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• There's only one thing you can use against pure logic, and that's common sense.

  Alan Cooper

  Use, Logic, Pure

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• Common sense is in spite of, not because of age.

  Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow

  Age, Common, Spite

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• Many expressions in the New Testament come naturally to the lips of all Protestants, and it furnishes the most pregnant and practical texts. There is no harmless dreaming, no wise speculation in it, but everywhere a substratum of good sense. It never reflects, but it repents. There is no poetry in it, we may say, nothing regarded in the light of beauty merely, but moral truth is its object. All mortals are convicted by its conscience.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Dream, Light

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “The Most Alive is the Wildest – Thoreau’s Complete Works on Living in Harmony with the Nature: Walden, Walking, Night and Moonlight, The Highland Light, A Winter Walk, The Maine Woods, A Walk to Wachusett, The Landlord, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Autumnal Tints, Wild Apples…”, p.327, e-artnow

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• A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles,Mthat was what distinguished him.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Ideas, Principles

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.241, Graphic Arts Books

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• What is called common sense is excellent in its department, and as invaluable as the virtue of conformity in the army and navy,--for there must be subordination,--but uncommon sense, that sense which is common only to the wisest, is as much more excellent as it is more rare.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Army, Navy, Conformity

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.13, Yale University Press

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• If common sense had been consulted, how many marriages would never have taken place; if uncommon or divine sense, how few marriages such as we witness would ever have taken place!

  Henry David Thoreau

  Marriage, Taken, Divine

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.158, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The only thing you will get from common sense, is a common life. Be uncommon and have uncommon sense.

  Bryant H. McGill

  Life, Uncommon, Common

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• Our challenge, our opportunity is to pass common-sense solutions ... that repeal ObamaCare and replace it with patient-centered reforms that will help our constituents have better access to high-quality health care in America.

  John Boehner

  Health, Opportunity, Obamacare

  "Republicans start small on ObamaCare, cross fingers for court intervention" by Joseph Weber, www.foxnews.com. January 17, 2015.

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• I am thoroughly convinced that when the last chapter of humanity is written, we will find that the implications of atheism, i.e., living without God, if consistently carried through, will
  have made life plainly unlivable within the limits of reason or even common sense

  Ravi Zacharias

  Humanity, Atheism, Lasts

  FaceBook post by Ravi Zacharias from Mar 10, 2014

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• It was not curiosity that killed the goose who laid the golden egg, but an insatiable greed that devoured common sense.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Eggs, Greed, Curiosity

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• Retaining our capacity for reason
  is common sense, but definite conclusions and beliefs keep us from seeing life as it really is at any given moment.

  H. E Davey

  Belief, Moments, Reason

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• Be persistent with your disturbance until you get face to face with the Lord himself. Don't deify common sense.

  Oswald Chambers

  Faith, Religious, Faces

  Oswald Chambers (2013). “Utmost: Classic Readings and Prayers from Oswald Chambers”, p.18, Discovery House

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• Understand that you don't know it all. You don't know anything yet. What you've been taught is great, but always go with common sense. And don't marry your first love.

  Gabriel Iglesias

  First Love, Firsts, Taught

  Reddit AMA, www.reddit.com. July 11, 2014.

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