Common Quotes - Page 20

• A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.

  James Russell Lowell

  Common Sense, Profound, Genius

  James Russell Lowell (1871). “My Study Windows”, p.132

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• I am not in the roll of common men.

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Conceit, Common Man

  'Henry IV, Part 1' (1597) act 3, sc. 1, l. [42]

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• Men who profess a state of neutrality in times of public danger, desert the common interest of their fellow subjects; and act with independence to that constitution into which they are incorporated. The safety of the whole requires our joint endeavours. When this is at stake, the indifferent are not properly a part of the community; or rather are like dead limbs, which are an encumbrance to the body, instead of being of use to it.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Safety, Community

  Joseph Addison (1868). “The Works of Joseph Addison”, p.194

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• Though a man has all other perfections, and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Perfection, World

  Joseph Addison (1837). “The Works of Joseph Addison: The Spectator, no. 1-314”, p.329

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• No wreaths please - especially no hothouse flowers. Some common memento is better, something he prized and is known by: his old clothes - a few books perhaps.

  William Carlos Williams

  Flower, Book, Clothes

  William Carlos Williams (1938). “The complete collected poems of William Carlos Williams, 1906-1938”, Norfolk, Conn.

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• No man of common sense will value a woman the less, for not giving herself up at the first attack, or for not accepting his proposal without enquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as the rate of men now goes; in short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, even of her understanding, that having but one cast for her life, shall cast that life away at once, and make matrimony like death, be a leap in the dark.

  Daniel Defoe

  Character, Dark, Men

  Daniel Defoe (2011). “Moll Flanders”, p.94, OUP Oxford

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• It gave me a great notion of the credit of our present government and administration, to find people press as eagerly to pay moneyas they would to receive it; and, at the same time, a due respect for that body of men who have found out so pleasing an expedient for carrying on the common cause, that they have turned a tax into a diversion.

  Gertrude Stein

  Men, People, Pay

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• All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos. That can't be disproved, but we have no choice but to follow our senses.

  Isaac Asimov

  Choices, Insanity, Humanity

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• Jowett, in his day, did probably more than any other single man to let some fresh air into the exhausted atmosphere of the [Oxford] common rooms, and to widen the intellectual horizons of the place.

  Benjamin Jowett

  Men, Air, Oxford

  "Asquith". Book by Roy Jenkins, p. 22, 1964.

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• Courage is worthy of respect when displayed in the maintenance of legitimate claims and in the repelling of aggressions, bodily or other. Courage is worthy of yet higher respect when danger is faced in defence of claims common to self and others, as in resistance to invasion. Courage is worthy of the highest respect when risk to life or limb is dared in defence of others.

  Herbert Spencer

  Courage, Self, Risk

  Herbert Spencer (1874). “The Study of Sociology”, p.202, London, D. Appleton

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• Tranvestism is far more common among men, I noted, because it originates in the primary relation of mother and son.

  Camille Paglia

  Mother, Son, Men

  Camille Paglia (1990). “Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson”, Vintage

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• I do not define time, space, place, and motion, as being well known to all. Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common.

  Isaac Newton

  Space, People, Bears

  Isaac Newton (1966). “Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World: The motion of bodies”, p.6, Univ of California Press

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• Good and Evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different: And diverse men differ not only in their judgment, on the senses of what is pleasant and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, but also of what is conformable, or disagreeable to Reason, in the actions of the common life. Nay, the same man, in diverse times, differs from himself, and one time praiseth, that is, calleth Good, what another time he dispraiseth, and calleth Evil.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Men, Sight, Names

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• If we could suppose a great multitude of men to consent to the observation of justice, and other laws of Nature, without a common Power to keep them all in awe; we might as well suppose all mankind to do the same; and then there neither would be nor need to be any civil government or commonwealth at all, because there would be Peace without subjection.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Men, Law, Justice

  Thomas Hobbes (2008). “Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil”, p.130, Simon and Schuster

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• But if one Subject giveth Counsell to another, to do anything contrary to the Lawes, whether that Counsell proceed from evil intention, or from ignorance onely, it is punishable by the Common-wealth; because igorance of the Law, is no good excuse, where every man is bound to take notice of the Lawes to which he is subject.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Ignorance, Men, Law

  "Leviathan". Book by Thomas Hobbes. The Second Part, Chapter 25, 1651.

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• And whereas many men, by accident unevitable, become unable to maintain themselves by their labour; they ought not to be left to the Charity of private persons; but to be provided for, (as far-forth as the necessities of Nature require,) by the Lawes of the Common-wealth. For as it is Unchariablenesse in any man, to neglect the impotent; so it is in the Soveraign of a Common-wealth, to expose them to the hazard of such uncertain Charity.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Men, Hazards, Charity

  "Leviathan". Book by Thomas Hobbes. The Second Part, Chapter 30, 1651.

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• Intriguingly, in poll after poll, when Americans are asked what public institutions they most respect, three bodies are always at the top of their list: the Supreme Court, the armed forces, and the Federal Reserve System. All three have one thing in common: they are insulated from the public pressures and operate undemocratically. It would seem that Americans admire these institutions, precisely because they lead rather than follow.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Three, Body, Pressure

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• To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within their control as may be.

  Henry George

  Simple, Government, Organization

  Henry George (2006). “Social Problems”, p.171, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.

  David Hume

  Mediocrity, Literature, Occupation

  David Hume (1782). “The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688”, p.197

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• But the most common species of love is that which first arises from beauty, and afterwards diffuses itself into kindness and into the bodily appetite. Kindness or esteem, and the appetite to generation, are too remote to unite easily together. The one is, perhaps, the most refined passion of the soul; the other the most gross and vulgar. The love of beauty is placed in a just medium betwixt them, and partakes of both their natures: From whence it proceeds, that it is so singularly fitted to produce both.

  David Hume

  Love, Kindness, Passion

  David Hume (2015). “A Treatise of Human Nature: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.296, 谷月社

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• The work of the painter, the poet or the musician, like the myths and symbols of the savage, ought to be seen by us, if not as a superior form of knowledge, at least as the most fundamental and the only one really common to us all; scientific thought is merely the sharp point more penetrating because it has been whetted on the stone of fact, but at the cost of some loss of substance and its effectiveness is to be explained by its power to pierce sufficiently deeply for the main body of the tool to follow the head.

  Claude Levi-Strauss

  Loss, Effectiveness, Musician

  Claude Levi-Strauss (2012). “Tristes Tropiques”, p.121, Penguin

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• One of the key insights of the systems approach has been the realization that the network is a pattern that is common to all life. Wherever we see life, we see networks.

  Fritjof Capra

  Keys, Realization, Patterns

  "The Hidden Connections". Book by Fritjof Capra, 2002.

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• Outside his own ever-narrowing field of specialization, a scientist is a layman. What members of an academy of science have in common is a certain form of semiparasitic living.

  Erwin Chargaff

  Fields, Scientist, Form

  Erwin Chargaff (1977). “Voices in the labyrinth: nature, man, and science”, Harper San Francisco

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• Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own rightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Ideas, People, Intellectual

  "In Quest of Democracy". Essay by Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991.

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• The work of art still has something in common with enchantment: it posits its own, self-enclosed area, which is withdrawn from the context of profane existence, and in which special laws apply.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, Self, Law

  Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer (1997). “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, p.19, Verso

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