Common Sense Quotes - Page 16

• I never have known a man of ordinary common-sense who did not urge upon his sons, from earliest childhood, doctrines of economy and the practice of accumulation.

  William Graham Sumner

  Son, Men, Practice

  William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.38, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• Who said that justice is what you imagine? Can you be sure that you know it when you see it, that you will live long enough to recognize the decisive thunder of its occurrence, that it can be manifest within a generation, within ten generations, within the entire span of human existence? What you are talking about is common sense, not justice. Justice is higher and not as easy to understand - until it presents itself in unmistakable splendor. The design of which I speak is far above our understanding. But we can sometimes feel its presence.

  Mark Helprin

  Talking, Long, Justice

  Mark Helprin (1983). “Winter's Tale”, p.178, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The process of elimination, combined with a modicum of common sense, will always assist us to arrive at the correct conclusion with the maximum of possible accuracy and the minimum of hard labor. Which being translated means: I guessed it.

  Margery Allingham

  Mean, Elimination, Process

  Margery Allingham (1961). “Three Cases for Mr. Campion”

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• Bipartisanship is not what is missing in Washington. Common sense is.

  Rand Paul

  Missing, Common, Bipartisanship

  Rand Paul's Speech, www.politico.com. February 2, 2013.

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• I want nevertheless to add that for me the world is a defiance of common sense.

  Rene Magritte

  Add, World, Want

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• The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we call our common sense, our practical point of view. Actually, these are names for an all-absorbing familiarity with things as they are. . . . Thus it happens that when the times become unhinged, it is the practical people who are caught unaware . . . still clinging to things that no longer exist.

  Eric Hoffer

  Views, Names, People

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• Faith is the effort to believe what your common sense tells you is not true.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Faith, Believe, Effort

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• Life has many good things. The problem is that most of these good things can be gotten only by sacrificing other good things. We all recognize this in our daily lives. It is only in politics that this simple, common sense fact is routinely ignored.

  Thomas Sowell

  Sacrifice, Simple, Political

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• The people people have for friends
  Your common sense appall
  But the people people marry
  Are the queerest folk of all.

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Marriage, People, Cynical

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• Individual and team discipline ultimately come down to practicing a small set of principles over a long period of time. Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory, but rather embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence. Said in yet another way, discipline is to an athlete what scales are to a musician. Mastering the scales is what allows the musician to perform music. Mastering the skills of self discipline is what enables a person to become an accomplished elite athlete.

  Mike Hebert

  Volleyball, Team, Athlete

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• Karma grows from our hearts. Karma terminates from our hearts.

  Gautama Buddha

  Karma, Heart, Discipline

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• The eureka moment is two reasons why the output-based standard should be adopted: common sense and accountability. Input-based standards don't encourage energy diversity; they don't create any incentives; they don't produce solar, hydro, nuclear.

  Frank Luntz

  Two, Diversity, Accountability

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• Whenever a man boasts much about [his common sense], you may be pretty sure that he has very little sense, either common or uncommon.

  Henry Thomas Buckle

  Men, May, Littles

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• Worship is the common sense of faith in a life to come; and the hours we devote to it will assuredly be among those upon which we shall reflect with most thankful joy when all things here shall have fallen into a very distant background, and when through the Atoning Mercy our true home has been reached at last.

  Henry Parry Liddon

  Home, Joy, Lasts

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• No chord in populism reverberates more strongly than the notion that the robust common sense of an unstained outsider is the best medicine for an ailing polity. Caligula doubtless got big cheers from the plebs when he installed his horse as proconsul.

  Alexander Cockburn

  Horse, Cheer, Medicine

  "Obama's Speech; McCain's Palinomy" by Alexander Cockburn, www.counterpunch.org. August 30, 2008.

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• If a work of art is to be truly immortal, it must pass quite beyond the limits of the human world, without any sign of common sense and logic. In this way the work will draw nearer to dream and to the mind of a child.

  Giorgio de Chirico

  Dream, Art, Children

  Quoted in Saranne Alexandrian Surrealist Art (1970).

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• The idea of storage as a solution of economic problems at least has the support of common sense.It is diametrically opposed to the topsy-turvy Alice-in-Wonderland reasoning that has marked so much of our depression thinking and policy.

  Benjamin Graham

  Thinking, Ideas, Support

  "Storage and Stability". Book by Benjamin Graham, Preface, p. vii, 1937.

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• Liberal politics meant the politics of common-sense.

  Henry Campbell-Bannerman

  Common

  The Spectator, pp. 223-224, February 17, 1984.

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• If we give all of the people who filed incorrect tax returns the benefit of the doubt and assume that every single one of them simply made an honest mistake, then doesn't common sense tell us that maybe the tax code is just a little too complex?

  Glenn Beck

  Mistake, People, Giving

  Glenn Beck (2009). “Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Ouf-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine”, p.38, Simon and Schuster

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• It's not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it's not going to help. Then you might say, "Yes, it's terrorizing people, but it's worth doing because it will end terrorism." But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?

  Howard Zinn

  People, Doe, Bombs

  Howard Zinn (2011). “Terrorism and War”, p.9, Seven Stories Press

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• Ernest Bevin had many of the strongest characteristics of the English race. His manliness, his common sense, his rough simplicity, sturdiness and kind heart, easy geniality and generosity, all are qualities which we who live in the southern part of this famous island regard with admiration.

  Ernest Bevin

  Heart, Islands, Race

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• Common sense tells us that the world is flat, that the sun goes around the earth, that heavy bodies always fall faster than light bodies, that boats made of iron will sink.

  Stuart Chase

  Fall, Light, Iron Will

  Stuart Chase (1962). “The Proper Study of Mankind”, New York : Harper & Row

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• I wanna be your happiness. I wanna be your common sense pain.

  Conor Oberst

  Pain, Common

  Song: Get-Well-Cards, Album: Conor Oberst, 2008

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

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Common, Excuse

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

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• A natural response to a natural phenomenon -that is the secret of success in business and management. You will always win if you rely on common sense.

  Konosuke Matsushita

  Success, Winning, Secret

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