Common Sense Quotes

• Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Funny, Leadership

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.24, St. Martin's Press

  108 Copy quote

  Show source

• Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Inspirational, Life, Wisdom

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1838). “The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Preface. Formula fidei de ss. Trinitate. Nightly prayer. Notes on the book of common prayer; Hooker; Field; Donne; Henry More; Heinrichs; Hacket; Jeremy Taylor; The pilgrim's progress; John Smith. Letter to a godchild”, p.186

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• Common sense is very uncommon.

  Horace Greeley

  Common, Uncommon

  76 Copy quote

• Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.

  Rene Descartes

  Humorous, Men, Ironic

  Attributed to Rene Descartes in Ian Glynn "An Anatomy of Thought: The Origin and Machinery of the Mind" (p. 7), 2003.

  39 Copy quote

  Show source

• Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Success, Failure, Knack

  44 Copy quote
• 

  It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

  H. L. Mencken

  Freedom, Honesty, Hate

  106 Copy quote

• Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.

  Josh Billings

  Inspirational, Wrestling, Meditation

  17 Copy quote

• Knowledge counts but common sense matters.

  LouAnne Johnson

  Matter, Common

  LouAnne Johnson (1995). “Dangerous Minds”, p.103, Macmillan

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most unfathomable schools and sages have never attained to the gravity which dwells in the eyes of a baby of three months old. It is the gravity of astonishment at the universe, and astonishment at the universe is not mysticism, but a transcendent common-sense. The fascination of children lies in this: that with each of them all things are remade, and the universe is put again upon its trial.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Baby, Children, Lying

  "The Defendant". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1901.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.

  Gertrude Stein

  Inspirational, Knowledge, Technology

  1959 'Reflection on the Atomic Bomb', collected in Robert A Goodwin (ed) Readings in World Politics (1959).

  110 Copy quote

  Show source

• Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

  W. C. Fields

  Funny, Horse, Crazy

  78 Copy quote

• To act with common sense according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know.

  Horace Walpole

  Wisdom, Moments, Knows

  Horace Walpole (1967). “The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence”

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Play, Never Fear, Fairs

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1853). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin”, p.73

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Education, Wisdom, School

  38 Copy quote

• Common sense will nearly always stand you in better stead than a slavish adherence to the conventions.

  M.M. Kaye

  Adherence, Common, Conventions

  M. M. Kaye (2015). “Shadow of the Moon”, p.163, St. Martin's Griffin

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Funny, Humor

  44 Copy quote

• If you have an ounce of common sense and one good friend you don't need an analyst.

  Joan Crawford

  Best Friend, Good Friend, Needs

  The New York Times Interview, 1964.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Common sense, to most people, is nothing more than their own opinions.

  William Hazlitt

  People, Community, Society

  20 Copy quote

• Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Wisdom, Taken

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.3128, Delphi Classics

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• Believe nothing,
  No matter where you read it,
  Or who has said it,
  Not even if I have said it,
  Unless it agrees with your own reason
  And your own common sense.

  Gautama Buddha

  Inspirational, Success, Atheist

  25 Copy quote

• Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Foundation, Construction

  Thomas Jefferson (1814). “The Proceedings of the Government of the United States in Maintaining the Public Right to the Beach of the Missisipi, Adjacent to New-Orleans, Against the Intrusion of Edward Livingston”, p.65

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can't legislate intelligence and common sense into people.

  Will Rogers

  People, Intelligence, Common

  Paula Love, Will Rogers (1972). “The Will Rogers book”, Texian Pr

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Science is simply common sense at its best.

  Thomas Huxley

  Motivational, Math, Science

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1902). “An Introduction to the Study of Zoology, Illustrated by the Crayfish”

  41 Copy quote

  Show source

• Work hard, use your common sense and don't be afraid to trust your instincts.

  Fred L. Turner

  Trust, Hard Work, Use

  8 Copy quote

• Self-sacrifice which denies common sense is not a virtue. It's a spiritual dissipation.

  Margaret Deland

  Spiritual, Sacrifice, Self

  12 Copy quote