Common Quotes - Page 36

• Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.

  Samuel Smiles

  Issues, Common Sense, Inspired

  Samuel Smiles (1872). “Character”, p.8

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• The path of success in business is invariably the path of common-sense. Nothwithstanding all that is said about "lucky hits," the best kind of success in every man's life is not that which comes by accident. The only "good time coming" we are justified in hoping for is that which we are capable of making for ourselves.

  Samuel Smiles

  Success, Men, Common Sense

  Samuel Smiles (1861). “Self-help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct”, p.255

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• [On Marilyn Monroe:] I think my response to her death was the common one: it came to me with the impact of a personal deprivation but I also felt it as I might a catastrophe in history or in nature; there was less in life, there was less of life, because she had ceased to exist. In her loss life itself had been injured.

  Diana Trilling

  Death, Loss, Thinking

  Diana Trilling (1964). “Claremont essays”

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• Crankish attacks on the freedom to read are common at present. When backed and coordinated by organized groups, they become sinister.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Groups, Sinister, Organized

  Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.124, Grove Press

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• Men with common minds seldom break through general rules. Prudence is ever the resort of weakness; and they rarely go as far as as they may in any undertaking, who are determined not to go beyond it on any account.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Men, Break Through, Mind

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Mary Wollstonecraft (Illustrated)”, p.1034, Delphi Classics

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• Chauncy Burr ... talks well, possibly better than he thinks. But this is a common failing.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Thinking, Talking, Speech

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot (Stanton). Blatch (Mrs) (1922). “Elizabeth Cady Stanton as revealed in her letters, diary and reminiscences”

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• All legislation, all government, all society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based...Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromises.

  Henry Clay

  Government, Humanity, Weakness

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• Men famed for wit, of dangerous talents vain,
  Treat those of common parts with proud disdain;
  The powers that wisdom would, improving, hide,
  They blaze abroad, with inconsid'rate pride;
  While yet but mere probationers for fame,
  They seize the honor they should then disclaim:
  Honor so hurried to the light must fade,
  The lasting laurels nourish in the shade.

  George Crabbe

  Pride, Men, Light

  George Crabbe (1839). “The Poetical Works of Crabbe, Heber, and Pollok: Complete in One Volume”, p.158

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• Both poetry and philosophy are prodigal of eulogy over the mind which ransoms itself by its own energy from a captivity to custom, which breaks the common bounds of empire, and cuts a Simplon over mountains of difficulty for its own purposes, whether of good or of evil.

  Horace Mann

  Philosophy, Cutting, Evil

  Horace Mann (1867). “Thoughts”, p.11

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• Within the brain's most secret cells,
  A certain lord chief justice dwells,
  Of sov'reign power, whom one and all,
  With common voice we reason call.

  Charles Churchill

  Voice, Cells, Justice

  Charles Churchill, “The Ghost - Book IV”

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• England, a happy land we know,
  Where follies naturally grow,
  Where without culture they arise,
  And tow'r above the common size.

  Charles Churchill

  Land, Culture, Size

  Charles Churchill (1772). “Poems: By Charles Churchill. In Three Volumes. With Large Corrections and Additions. To which is Added, the Life of the Author. Adorned with Cuts”, p.143

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• The stage I chose--a subject fair and free--
  'Tis yours--'tis mine--'tis public property.
  All common exhibitions open lie,
  For praise or censure, to the common eye.
  Hence are a thousand hackney writers fed;
  Hence monthly critics earn their daily bread.
  This is a general tax which all must pay,
  From those who scribble, down to those who play.

  Charles Churchill

  Lying, Eye, Play

  Charles Churchill, George Gilfillan (1855). “The poetical works of Charles Churchill: with memoir, critical dissertation, and explanatory notes / by the Rev. George Gilfillan”, p.43

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• What is this world?--A term which men have got,
  To signify not one in ten knows what;
  A term, which with no more precision passes
  To point out herds of men than herds of asses;
  In common use no more it means, we find,
  Than many fools in same opinions joined.

  Charles Churchill

  Mean, Men, Use

  Charles Churchill, George Gilfillan (1855). “The poetical works of Charles Churchill: with memoir, critical dissertation, and explanatory notes / by the Rev. George Gilfillan”, p.61

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• To be an object of hatred and aversion to their contemporaries has been the usual fate of all those whose merit has raised them above the common level. The man who submits to the shafts of envy for the sake of noble objects pursues a judicious course for his own lasting fame. Hatred dies with its object, while merit soon breaks forth in full splendor, and his glory is handed down to posterity in never-dying strains.

  Thucydides

  Fate, Men, Envy

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• love of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel.

  Mary McCarthy

  Passion, Ordinary, Ruling

  Mary McCarthy (2002). “A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays”, New York Review of Books

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• Perhaps I may record here my protest against the efforts, so often made, to shield children and young people from all that has to do with death and sorrow, to give them a good time at all hazards on the assumption that the ills of life will come soon enough. Young people themselves often resent this attitude on the part of their elders; they feel set aside and belittled as if they were denied the common human experiences.

  Jane Addams

  Children, Attitude, Soon Enough

  Jane Addams (2012). “Twenty Years at Hull-House: With Autobiographical Notes”, p.14, Courier Corporation

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• I think true love is never blind, / But rather brings an added light; / An inner vision quick to find / The beauties hid from common sight.

  Phoebe Cary

  Love Is, Thinking, Light

  Phoebe Cary (1868). “Poems of Faith, Hope, and Love”, p.37

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• Often beauty grows dull or common when speech breaks the mask.

  Mary Renault

  Dull, Speech, Mask

  Mary Renault (1974). “The Mask of Apollo”

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• The use of torture is contrary to sound judgment and common sense. Humanity itself cries out against it, and demands it to be utterly abolished.

  Catherine the Great

  Common Sense, Humanity, Sound

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• At any given period in history the ideas of the common mind are found to antedate the facts. The facts of the twentieth century are approached with the ideas, feelings, prejudices of the tenth.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Ideas, Feelings, Mind

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1904). “Human Work”, p.47, Rowman Altamira

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• One of the common traits of outstanding performers-coaches, athletes, managers, sales representatives, executives, and others who face a daily up/down, win/lose accounting system-is that a rejection, that is, defeat, is quickly forgotten, replaced eagerly by pursuit of a new order, client, or opponent.

  Bill Walsh

  Athlete, Winning, Order

  Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, Craig Walsh (2009). “The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership”, p.256, Penguin

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• They may be all comprehended under three heads - 1st, Superstition; 2d, Power; 3d, the common interests of society, and the common rights of man.

  Thomas Paine

  Men, Rights, Religion

  Thomas Paine (1830). “The Political Writings of Thomas Paine ...: Prospects on the Rubicon. Rights of man, part I. Rights of man, part II. Letter to the authors of the Republican. Letter to the Abbe Sieyes. Address to the addressers. Letters to Lord Onslow. Dissertation on the first principles of government. Speech delivered in the French National convention. Letter to Mr. Secretary Dundas. The decline and fall of the English system of finance. Letter to the people of France. Reasons for preserving the life of Louis”, p.74

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• Everything wonderful in appearance has been ascribed to angels, to devils, or to saints. Everything ancient has some legendary tale annexed to it. The common operations of nature have not escaped their practice of corrupting everything.

  Thomas Paine

  Angel, Practice, Religion

  Thomas Paine (1854). “The Works of Thomas Paine: A Hero in the American Revolution. With an Account of His Life ...”, p.208

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• [P]rescientific people... could never guess the nature of physical reality beyond the tiny sphere attainable by unaided common sense. Nothing else ever worked, no exercise from myth, revelation, art, trance, or any other conceivable means; and notwithstanding the emotional satisfaction it gives, mysticism, the strongest prescientific probe in the unknown, has yielded zero.

  E. O. Wilson

  Art, Zero, Mean

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• Even if it is true that all cultures share a common morality, why does this prove a supreme intelligence? After all, don't we humanists sometimes claim that there is a common thread of humanistic values running through history across cultural and religious lines?

  Dan Barker

  Running, Religious, Common Threads

  Dan Barker (1992). “Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist”, Freedom from Religion Fndtn

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