Common Sense Quotes - Page 34

• If the Aborigine drafted an I.Q. test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it.

  Stanley Marion Garn

  Wisdom, Civilization, Intelligence

  16 Copy quote

• If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes.

  Thomas More

  Trust, Betrayal, Hero

  116 Copy quote

• Now of the difficulties bound up with the public in which we doctors work, I hesitate to speak in a mixed audience. Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.

  William Osler

  Education, Hard Work, Science

  William Osler (1927). “Aequanimitas”, p.73, Ravenio Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The biggest challenge of public policy is to know when and how the world has changed. We are no longer an empty continent with endless absorptive capacity. We have a cash-wage economy that is having terrible problems finding jobs for its own people. The concern about immigration is not nativism but common sense.

  Richard Lamm

  Jobs, People, Challenges

  8 Copy quote

• By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none.

  Charlie Chaplin

  Atheist, Believe, Simple

  19 Copy quote

• If we were to judge nature by common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed.

  Annie Dillard

  Atheist, Believe, Judging

  Annie Dillard (2011). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, p.146, Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• For my part I cannot believe in a God who is angry with me because I do not believe in him. I cannot believe in a God who is less tolerant than I. I cannot believe in a God who has neither humour nor common sense.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Atheist, Believe, Common

  "The Summing Up".

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The time for common-sense immigration reform is now," Grayson said in a news release. "We must set forth a straightforward route to citizenship for the undocumented immigrants who already live in our communities, work for our businesses and want to give back to the country that they call home.

  Alan Grayson

  Country, Home, Giving

  4 Copy quote

• Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him?... Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray.

  Oswald Chambers

  Prayer, Attitude, Son

  55 Copy quote

• Science, as opposed to technology, does violence to common sense.

  Richard Dawkins

  Technology, Doe, Violence

  Richard Dawkins (2008). “The God Delusion”, p.410, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A Positive Mental Attitude is the right mental attitude. What is the right mental attitude? It is most often comprised of the "plus" characteristics symbolized by such words as faith, integrity, hope, optimism, courage, initiative, generosity, tolerance, tact, kindliness, and good common sense. A person with positive mental attitude aims for high goals and constantly strives to achieve them.

  Napoleon Hill

  Positive, Attitude, Integrity

  Napoleon Hill, W. Clement Stone (1960). “Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude”, p.34, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The man who stands firm in order to protect a sand-castle can never be relied upon; for he has given away his common sense.

  Winston Churchill

  Courage, Men, Order

  22 Copy quote

• We need common-sense judges who understand our rights were derived from God

  George W. Bush

  Faith, Rights, Judging

  7 Copy quote

• Golf is not a good walk spoiled. It is becoming a good walk prohibited. Show me the common sense in this and I promise I will relent. But there is no common sense at all in the prohibition of walking.

  Lorne Rubenstein

  Golf, Promise, Becoming

  5 Copy quote

• Christianity is the complete negation of common sense and sound reason.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Sound, Christianity, Reason

  9 Copy quote

• The greatest results in life are usually attained by common sense and perseverance.

  Owen Feltham

  Inspirational, Perseverance, Results

  8 Copy quote

• Yet as I cast my eye over the whole course of science I behold instances of false science, even more pretentious and popular than that of Einstein gradually fading into ineptitude under the searchlight; and I have no doubt that there will arise a new generation who will look with a wonder and amazement, deeper than now accompany Einstein, at our galaxy of thinkers, men of science, popular critics, authoritative professors and witty dramatists, who have been satisfied to waive their common sense in view of Einstein's absurdities.

  Arthur Lynch

  Witty, Eye, Science

  18 Copy quote

• The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgement the great postulate of our democracy.

  William O. Douglas

  Maturity, People, Judgement

  7 Copy quote

• Horses in the Book of Mormon would be another. You have relatively few mentions of horses, but there are some, and we don't know exactly how they were used; they don't seem to be all that common. Were they horses as we understood them, [or] does the term describe some other animal? Languages don't always and cultures don't always classify things the way we would expect. We have what we call common-sense ways of doing it. They're not common sense; they're just ours. But again, we don't have a strong case there. We're just problem solving there.

  Daniel C. Peterson

  Strong, Horse, Honesty

  6 Copy quote

• To become truly immortal a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken it will enter the regions of childhood vision and dream.

  Giorgio de Chirico

  Dream, Art, Escaping

  "Letters of the great artists - from Ghiberti to Gainsborough" by Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, (p. 231), 1963.

  76 Copy quote

  Show source

• Because desperation breeds gullibility. People want to lose weight so much that their common sense shuts off.

  David L. Katz

  People, Weight, Want

  17 Copy quote

• If the question were, "What ought to be the next objective in science?" my answer would be the teaching of science to the young, so that when the whole population grew up there would be a far more general background of common sense, based on a knowledge of the real meaning of the scientific method of discovering truth.

  Elihu Thomson

  Real, Teaching, Knowledge

  48 Copy quote

• What the founders of modern science ... had to do, was not criticize and to combat certain faulty theories, and to correct or to replace them by better ones. They had to do something quite different. They had to destroy one world and replace it by another. They had to reshape the framework of our intellect itself, to restate and to reform its concepts, to evolve a new approach to Being, a new concept of knowledge, and a new concept of science - and even to replace a pretty natural approach, that of common sense, by another which is not natural at all.

  Alexandre Koyre

  Knowledge, Science, Reform

  "Galileo to Plato". Journal of the History of Ideas, 1957.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The theory of probabilities is basically only common sense reduced to a calculus. It makes one estimate accurately what right-minded people feel by a sort of instinct, often without being able to give a reason for it.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, People, Giving

  Pierre-Simon Laplace (2012). “Pierre-Simon Laplace Philosophical Essay on Probabilities: Translated from the fifth French edition of 1825 With Notes by the Translator”, p.124, Springer Science & Business Media

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Average people and the average community can change the world. You can do it just based on common sense, determination, persistence and patience.

  Lois Gibbs

  Determination, Persistence, Average

  8 Copy quote