Common Quotes - Page 24

• Using, as an excuse, others' failure of common sense is in itself a failure of common sense.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Common Sense, Excuse

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.10, Random House

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• Scientific revolutions, almost by definition, defy common sense.

  Michio Kaku

  Common Sense, Definitions, Revolution

  Michio Kaku (1995). “Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension”, p.7, OUP Oxford

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• Norman Rockwell, the Brueghel of the 20th century bourgeoisie, the Holbein of Jell-O ads and magazine covers; by common assent, the most American artist of all.

  Jerry Adler

  Artist, Bourgeoisie, Magazines

  1993 On the opening of the Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In Newsweek,12 Apr.

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• The one reasonable goal of social life was affirmed to be the creation of a world of awakened, of sensitive, intelligent, and mutually understanding personalities, banded together for the common purpose of exploring the universe and developing the human spirit's manifold potentialities.

  Olaf Stapledon

  Intelligent, Common Purpose, Goal

  Olaf Stapledon (1931). “Last and First Men, & Star Maker: Two Science-fiction Novels”, Courier Corporation

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• I know from experience that to one who thinks much and feels deeply, it often seems that he has only to put down his thoughts and feelings in order to produce something altogether out of the common; yet as soon as he sets to work he falls into a certain mannerism of style and common phraseology; his thoughts do not come spontaneously, and one might almost say that it is not the mind that directs the pen, but the pen leads the mind into common, empty artificiality.

  Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Fall, Thinking, Order

  Henryk Sienkiewicz (1897). “Without Dogma: A Novel of Modern Poland”

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• Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.

  Francis Collins

  Dna, Doubt, Records

  "Collins: Why This Scientist Believes in God" by Francis Collins, edition.cnn.com. April 06, 2007.

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• Have you ever had a big idea or dream - something you wanted so bad ... but you were too scared to make it happen, or maybe you didn't really believe it could? Think of how often you've had someone you looked up to or viewed as successful - shoot one of your suggestions full of holes. Ideas and babies have a lot in common - they require a lot of nourishment to survive. A new idea, regardless of its size, may not be able to withstand a beating when you first give it birth.

  Bob Proctor

  Dream, Baby, Believe

  FaceBook post by Bob Proctor from Jan 04, 2012

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• During true revival, thousands of lost people are suddenly swept into the Kingdom of God. Scenes of the lost coming to the Savior in great, and unprecedented numbers, are common.

  Henry Blackaby

  Numbers, People, Kingdoms

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• We are not born of the passions of war or of the fervours of revolution. And we grew quietly into the realization that, set as we are in a great wide land, with all our differences, there are certain traditions and ideals which we had in common, and which could best be preserved in a distinct society of our own.

  Vincent Massey

  War, Passion, Land

  Address to the Canadian Club of Vancouver, October 14, 1952.

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• Every individual, from the common mechanic, that works in wood or clay, to the prime minister that regulates with the dash of his pen the agriculture, the breeding of cattle, the mining, or the commerce of a nation, will perform his business the better, the better he understands the nature of things,and the more his understanding is enlightened.

  Jean-Baptiste Say

  Agriculture, Understanding, Woods

  Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, J.R. McCulloch (2013). “History of Economic Theory: The Selected Writings of Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, and J.R. McCulloch”, p.133, Coventry House Publishing

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• Wherefore it is impossible to succeed in comparing wealth of different eras or different nations. This, in political economy, like squaring the circle in mathematics, is impracticable, for want of a common mean or measure to go by.

  Jean-Baptiste Say

  Mean, Circles, Political

  Jean Baptiste Say (1827). “A treatise on political economy: or, The production, distribution and consumption of wealth”, p.191

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• It is in the measure that special methods acknowledge their common core in transcendental method, that norms common to all the sciences will be acknowledged, that a secure basis will be attained for tackling interdisciplinary problems, and that the sciences will be mobilized within a higher unity of vocabulary, thought and orientation, in which they will be able to make their quite significant contribution to the solution of fundamental problems.

  Bernard Lonergan

  Vocabulary, Unity, Special

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• One difference between libertarianism and socialism is that a socialist society can't tolerate groups of people practicing freedom, but a libertarian society can comfortably allow people to choose voluntary socialism. If a group of people - even a very large group - wanted to purchase land and own it in common, they would be free to do so. The libertarian legal order would require only that no one be coerced into joining or giving up his property.

  David Boaz

  Giving Up, Order, Land

  "The Coming Libertarian Age". Cato Policy Report, January/February 1997.

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• Libertarians have always battled the age-old scourge of war. They understood that war brought death and destruction on a grand scale, disrupted family and economic life, and put more power in the hands of the ruling class - which might explain why the rulers did not always share the popular sentiment for peace. Free men and women, of course, have often had to defend their own societies against foreign threats; but throughout history, war has usually been the common enemy of peaceful, productive people on all sides of the conflict.

  David Boaz

  War, Men, Class

  David Boaz (2015). “The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom”, p.28, Simon and Schuster

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• Buddhist nirvana ... is based on egolessness and is not anthropocentric but rather cosmological. In Buddhism, humans and the things of the universe are equally subject to change, equally subject to transitoriness or transmigration. A person cannot achieve emancipation from the cycle of birth and death until he or she can eliminate a more universal problem: the transience common to all things in the universe.

  Masao Abe

  Buddhist, Buddhism, Birth

  Masao Abe (2016). “Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue: Part one of a two-volume sequel to Zen and Western Thought”, p.80, Springer

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• The music that of common speech but slanted so that each detail sounds unexpected as a sharp inserted in a simple scale.

  Dana Gioia

  Simple, Sound, Details

  Dana Gioia (2016). “99 Poems: New & Selected”, p.92, Macmillan

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• I see the possibility of being 'made new' again and the gift of rebirth is all that lets anyone really live.. ..The great secret.. .. is never to get stuck, imprisoned in common social patterns. They always paralyse the real quality of life - the 'going onward' is all that matters, and the dead moments in one's life through trying to be a unit in any society or social concept are terrifying really.

  Marsden Hartley

  Real, Secret, Trying

  Letter to Adelaide Kuntz; as quoted in "Marsden Hartley", by Gail R. Scott, 1988, p. 168, September 7, 1933.

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• We all feel a separateness; we wish that a drop of water would soften our ego; the world needs a common conscience: agreement... we must concentrate outside ourselves.

  Mark Tobey

  Agreement, Water, Ego

  Bahai lecture; as quoted in "Abstract Expressionist Painting in America", W.C. Seitz, 1983, pp. 66/67, 1951.

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• By comparing the human and chimp genomes, we can see the process of evolution clearly in the changes (in DNA) since we diverged from our common ancestor.

  Bob Waterston

  Dna, Evolution, Process

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• Common sense is a phrase employed to denote that degree of intelligence, sagacity, and prudence which is common to all men.

  William Fleming

  Men, Common Sense, Degrees

  William Fleming, Charles Porterfield Krauth (1860). “The Vocabulary of Philosophy, Mental, Moral and Metaphysical: With Quotations and References; for the Use of Students”, p.95

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• In the '50s, to appropriate was a real no-no. However, once you go from Duchamp to Jasper Johns to Warhol, appropriation becomes not only a common thing to do, but possibly the central way of working in the era we call postmodernism.

  Irving Sandler

  Real, Copying, Way

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• An art school is generated only by the intensity and heat of a common pressure.

  William Lethaby

  Education, Art, School

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• The wretched beings depicted by Millet touch us profoundly because he loved them profoundly. They have nothing in common with vulgar ugliness. Beauty will always remain the highest aim of art.

  Jules Breton

  Beauty, Art, Vulgar

  Jules Breton (1891). “The Life of an Artist: Art and Nature”

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• During those rare moments of creativeness, when a person has something in common with the making of the universe, he feels a sense of transcendence. What could be a greater reward?

  Joseph C Zinker

  Rewards, Rare Moments, Transcendence

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• If an artist and a scientist have a common point, it is probably in the need for some kind of imaginative thinking to interpret the material they have.

  Catherine Yass

  Artist, Thinking, Needs

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