Common Sense Quotes - Page 33

• Common sense is so very simple but very difficult to grasp.

  Mike Tyson

  Simple, Common, Difficult

  Interview with Earl Sweatshirt, mag.citizensofhumanity.com. December 14, 2015.

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• What I am endeavoring to do is simply speak the truth, speak common-sense values, free market principles and the Constitution. For every question, the Constitution is my touchstone.

  Ted Cruz

  Principles, Constitution, Speak

  Interview with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. June 29, 2015.

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• ...science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common-sense rounded out and minutely articulated. It is therefore as much an instinctive product, as much a stepping forth of human courage in the dark, as is any inevitable dream or impulsive action.

  George Santayana

  Dream, Dark, Perception

  George Santayana (2015). “The Life of Reason: Human Understanding”, p.506, 谷月社

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• Our lives are based on what is reasonable and common sense;
  Truth is apt to be neither.

  Christmas Humphreys

  Truth Is, Our Lives, Reasonable

  Christmas Humphreys (2003). “Teach Yourself Zen”, Teach Yourself

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• May the conscience and the common sense of the peoples be awakened, so that we may reach a new stage in the life of nations, where people will look back on war as an incomprehensible aberration of their forefathers!

  Albert Einstein

  War, People, Looks

  Albert Einstein (2007). “The World As I See It”, p.66, Book Tree

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• Plain experience and common sense inform us that no abstract Person can have made us as we are without also wishing to delete us and start over (Gen. 8:21; Zeph. 1:2). Therefore, the existence of cruel and arbitrary nature, together with the universality of human sin, prevents us from beginning the theological enterprise with any concept of God that is distinct from revelation. All theologies of a cosmic harmonic principle shipwreck on the truths of tragedy, catastrophe, and injustice.

  Paul F. M. Zahl

  Starting Over, Together, Tragedy

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• There's folks 'ud hold a sieve under the pump and expect to carry away the water.

  George Eliot

  Water, Pumps, Folks

  George Eliot (2016). “Adam Bede”, p.345, George Eliot

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• Nature seems to exult in abounding radicality, extremism, anarchy. If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The whole creation is one lunatic fringe. ... No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe.

  Annie Dillard

  Nature, Believe, Judging

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• In most old communities there is a common sense even in sensuality. Vice itself gets gradually digested into a system, is amenable to certain laws of conventional propriety and honor, has for its object simply the gratification of its appetites, and frowns with quite a conservative air on all new inventions, all untried experiments in iniquity.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Air, Law, Community

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1866). “Character and Characteristic Men”, p.39

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• Sydney Smith playfully says that common sense was invented by Socrates, that philosopher having been one of its most conspicuous exemplars in conducting the contest of practical sagacity against stupid prejudice and illusory beliefs.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Stupid, Prejudice, Belief

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1875). “Success and Its Conditions”, p.284

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• Common sense is almost as omniscient as God.

  Emily Dickinson

  Common, Omniscient

  Emily Dickinson, Marta L. Werner (1995). “Emily Dickinson's Open Folios: Scenes of Reading, Surfaces of Writing”, p.282, University of Michigan Press

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• Nature is indeed a specious ward, nay, there is a great deal in it if it is properly understood and applied, but I cannot bear to hear people using it to justify what common sense must disavow. Is not Nature modifed by art in many things? Was it not designed to be so? And is it not happy for human society that it is so? Would you like to see your husband let his beard grow, until he would be obliged to put the end of it in his pocket, because this beard is the gift of Nature?

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  Art, Nature, Husband

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• To breed up the son to common sense is evermore the parent's least expense.

  John Dryden

  Education, Son, Parent

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

  Stanley Marion Garn

  Wisdom, Civilization, Intelligence

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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

  Charlie Chaplin

  Atheist, Believe, Simple

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• 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

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• 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".

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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