Common Sense Quotes:

Common sense means living in the world as it is today; but creative people are people who don't want the world as it is today but want to make another world.

- Abraham Maslow

topic: Mean, People, Common Sense

Innocence can be redefined and called stupidity. Honesty can be called gullibility. Candor becomes lack of common sense. Interest in your work can be called cowardice. Generosity can be called soft-headedness, and observe : the former is disturbing

- Abraham Maslow

topic: Honesty, Generosity, Common Sense, Gullibility, Candor

A puppy is but a dog, plus high spirits, and minus common sense.

- Agnes Repplier

source: Agnes Repplier (1894). “In the Dozy Hours, and Other Papers”

topic: Dog, Common Sense, Spirit, Cute Puppy, Puppy Love

The idea that God will pardon a rebel who has not given up his rebellion is contrary both to the Scriptures and to common sense.

- Aiden Wilson Tozer

topic: Ideas, Common Sense, Scripture

I'm an Einstein of the streets and an Oxford scholar of common sense.

- Al McGuire

topic: Basketball, Oxford, Common Sense

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

topic: Country, Home, Common Sense, Undocumented Immigrants

The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it - aliens.

- Alan Watts

topic: Common Sense, Culture, Taught, Identical, Intelligent Person

Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Common Sense, Mind, Prejudice, Mind Opening, Opening Your Mind

Common sense is that layer of prejudices which we acquire before we are sixteen.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Media, Common Sense, Prejudice

Common sense invents and constructs no less than its own field than science does in its domain. It is, however, in the nature of common sense not to be aware of this situation.

- Albert Einstein

topic: Common Sense, Doe, Fields

Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense. There are forty men of wit for one man of sense; and he that will carry nothing about him but gold, will be every day at a loss for want of readier change.

- Alexander Pope

topic: Loss, Men, Common Sense, Good Sense

Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense.

- Alexander Pope

topic: Common Sense, Half, Common

What the founders of modern science, among them Galileo, had to do, was not to criticize and to combat certain faulty theories, and to correct or to replace them by better ones. They had to do something quite different. They had to destroy one world and to replace it by another. They had to reshape the framework of our intellect itself, to restate and to reform its concepts, to evolve a new approach to Being, a new concept of knowledge, a new concept of science-and even to replace a pretty natural approach, that of common sense, by another which is not natural at all.

- Alexandre Koyre

source: "Galileo to Plato". Journal of the History of Ideas, 1957.

topic: Knowledge, Common Sense, World, New Approach

There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.

- Alexis de Tocqueville

topic: Country, Law, Common Sense, Political Institutions

There are at the present time two great nations in the world--the Russians and the Americans. The American relies upon his personal interest to accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common sense of the people. The Russian centers all his authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting point is different and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe.

- Alexis de Tocqueville

topic: Destiny, Two, Common Sense, Personal Interest

The Adlerians, in the name of "individual psychology," take the side of society against the individual. ... Adler's later thought succumbs to the worst of his earlier banalization. It is conventional, practical, and moralistic. "Our science ... is based on common sense." Common sense, the half-truths of a deceitful society, is honored as the honest truths of a frank world.

- Alfred Adler

topic: Names, Common Sense, Psychology, Adler

Common sense is genius in homespun.

- Alfred North Whitehead

topic: Common Sense, Genius, Common

Cooking creates a sense of well-being for yourself and the people you love and brings beauty and meaning to everyday life. And all it requires is common sense – the common sense to eat seasonally, to know where your food comes from, to support and buy from local farmers and producers who are good stewards of our natural resources.

- Alice Waters

source: Alice Waters (2010). “In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart”, p.10, Clarkson Potter

topic: People, Common Sense, Support, Stewards

I was imprisoned as an innocent person, it's common sense not to go back

- Amanda Knox

source: "Amanda Knox on retrial: 'Everything's at stake'" by Scott Stump, www.today.com. September 20, 2013.

topic: Common Sense, Common, Innocent, Innocent Person

Common sense has become an uncommon virtue.

- Amit Abraham

topic: Common Sense, Common, Virtue

A balanced program for tax reform based upon the common sense idea of lowering taxes out of surplus revenues.

- Andrew Mellon

topic: Ideas, Common Sense, Reform, Tax Reform

What kind of bank gives back 65 percent-often less-of what you deposit? Indeed, when you compare the services of a bank and an insurance company, common sense suggests something is out of whack.

- Andrew Tobias

source: "The Invisible Bankers, Everything The Insurance Industry Never Wanted You To Know". Book by Andrew Tobias, 1982.

topic: Common Sense, Giving, Kind

Good Luck is rather particular who she rides with, and mostly prefers those who have got common sense and a good heart; at least that is my experience.

- Anna Sewell

source: Anna Sewell (2015). “Black Beauty”, p.133, Xist Publishing

topic: Heart, Good Luck, Common Sense

You have to focus on your dreams, even if they go beyond common sense.

- Anna Sui

topic: Dream, Common Sense, Focus

No, thank you, I don't mind the rain,' I said. I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise.

- Anne Bronte

topic: Rain, Taken, Common Sense

Fanaticism and bigotry require any food but common sense and reason, which would break the charm of those spellbound fanatics.

- Anne Royall

topic: Common Sense, Atheism, Reason

It's just common sense that if you only have one candidate remaining, the apparatus of government should be responsive enough to accommodate that and not spend any more taxpayer money,.

- Anthony Weiner

topic: Government, Common Sense, Enough

Common sense is not something rigid and stationary, but is in continuous transformation, becoming enriched with scientific notions and philosophical opinions that have entered into common circulation. 'Common sense' is the folklore of philosophy and always stands midway between folklore proper (folklore as it is normally understood) and the philosophy, science, and economics of the scientists. Common sense creates the folklore of the future, a relatively rigidified phase of popular knowledge in a given time and place.

- Antonio Gramsci

topic: Philosophy, Philosophical, Common Sense, Circulation, Folklore

Common sense is the folklore of philosophy.

- Antonio Gramsci

source: Antonio Gramsci (2011). “Prison Notebooks”, p.173, Columbia University Press

topic: Philosophy, Common Sense, Common, Folklore

All ultimately intermarried to produce a race of many strains, which may account for the paradox that a people famed for stolid, patient, practical common-sense; a nation as Napoleon said, of "shopkeepers", has produced more adventurers, explorers and poets than probably any other in history.

- Arthur Bryant

topic: Race, People, Common Sense, Shopkeepers

Give the children love, more love and still more love – and the common sense will come by itself.

- Astrid Lindgren

source: "The 10 best Pippi Longstocking quotes" by Laura Tscherry, www.theguardian.com. June 2, 2015.

topic: Children, Common Sense, Giving

A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity.

- Aung San Suu Kyi

topic: Men, Self, Common Sense, Condemning, Masquerade

'Knowledge, without common sense,' says Lee, is 'folly; without method, it is waste; without kindness, it is fanaticism; without religion, it is death.' But with common sense, it is wisdom with method, it is power; with charity, it is beneficence; with religion, it is virtue, and life, and peace.

- Austin Farrer

topic: Life, Kindness, Common Sense, Beneficence

His (Deschamps') complaint of court life was the same as is made of government at the top in any age: it was composed of hypocrisy, flattery, lying, paying and betraying; it was where calumny and cupidity reigned, common sense lacked, truth dared not appear, and where to survive one had to be deaf, blind, and dumb.

- Barbara Tuchman

topic: Lying, Government, Common Sense

Wisdom - meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.

- Barbara Tuchman

topic: Wisdom, Appreciation, Common Sense

Happiness for the average person may be said to flow largely from common sense - adapting one-self to circumstances - and a sense of humor.

- Beatrice Lillie

topic: Self, Average, Common Sense, Average Person

Common sense is something that everyone needs, few have, and none think they lack.

- Benjamin Franklin

topic: Thinking, Common Sense, Needs

Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense.

- Benjamin Spock

source: Benjamin Spock, M.D. (2012). “Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care, 9th Edition”, p.25, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

topic: Common Sense, Common

Don't take too seriously all that the neighbors say. Don't be overawed by what the experts say. Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense.

- Benjamin Spock

topic: Common Sense, Experts, Common

Common sense, however it tries, cannot avoid being surprised from time to time.

- Bertrand Russell

topic: Common Sense, Trying, Common, Reason And Logic

The painter has to unlearn the habit of thinking that things seem to have the color which common sense says they 'really' have, and to learn the habit of seeing things as they appear.

- Bertrand Russell

topic: Thinking, Color, Common Sense

Although humankind inherently "desires to know", if open access to, and unlimited development of, knowledge henceforth puts us all in clear danger of extinction, then common sense demands that we re-examine our reverence for knowledge.

- Bill Joy

topic: Knowledge, Common Sense, Desire

You can handle just about anything that comes at you out on the road with a believable grin, common sense and whiskey.

- Bill Murray

topic: Common Sense, Common, Whiskey

On the one hand, it's common sense it's hard to see someone you love get sick or die. People are interconnected and their health is, too.

- Bill Vaughan

topic: Hands, People, Common Sense

Common sense tells us that we should focus our resources to benefit children, teachers and taxpayers by keeping dollars in the classroom.

- Bob Beauprez

topic: Teacher, Children, Common Sense

Common sense solutions to lowering your gasoline bills can go far. Carpooling, taking fewer or shorter road trips, and ensuring that your tires are fully inflated can all help stop the pinch at the pump.

- Bob Ney

topic: Common Sense, Gasoline, Pumps, Road Trip

Everybody says, 'I have problems overcooking steak on the grill,' but just take it off earlier! Grilling is really common sense. It's very simple. You should think of a grill as a burner - it just happens to have grates. You shouldn't be intimidated by it.

- Bobby Flay

topic: Simple, Thinking, Common Sense, Grate, Grilling

Gadfangled girl things, always robbed me of my common sense.

- Bruce Coville

topic: Girl, Common Sense, Common, Girl Thing

Now I do not myself share that superstitious reverence for the beliefs of common sense which many contemporary philosophers profess. But I think that we must start from them, and that we ought to depart from them only when we find good reason to do so.

- C. D. Broad

topic: Philosophical, Thinking, Common Sense

When common sense sees a puzzling phenomenon it looks for a causal agent. When it sees organization it looks for an organizer. This works amazingly well for purposes ranging from the diagnosis of diseases to the creation of governments. But it cannot account for emergence ... the appearance of complex phenomena not predictable from the basic elements and processes alone.

- Carl Bereiter

source: Carl Bereiter (2005). “Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age”, p.200, Routledge

topic: Organization, Government, Common Sense, Organizer, Puzzling

Don't be afraid of being scared. To be afraid is a sign of common sense. Only complete idiots are not afraid of anything.

- Carlos Ruiz Zafon

topic: Fear, Common Sense, Scared, Being Scared

People just want to hear some common sense... and I bring to bear the experience in local government and state government and national government - I was the first woman in history on the Senate Finance Committee - not to mention the diplomatic international experience.

- Carol Moseley Braun

topic: Government, Common Sense, People, Senate

Take care of your common sense, and your dignity will take care of itsself

- Carolyn Wells

source: Carolyn Wells (2007). “Patty at Home”, p.42, 1st World Publishing

topic: Common Sense, Care, Dignity

I am confident that, in the end, common sense and justice will prevail. I'm an optimist, brought up on the belief that if you wait to the end of the story, you get to see the good people live happily ever after.

- Cat Stevens

source: "A cat in a wild world" by Yusuf Islam, www.theguardian.com. October 1, 2004.

topic: People, Common Sense, Justice, Justice Will Prevail, Happily Ever After

As liberty and intelligence have increased the people have more and more revolted against the theological dogmas that contradict common sense and wound the tenderest sensibilities of the soul.

- Catharine Beecher

topic: People, Common Sense, Soul, Theological

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

topic: Common Sense, Humanity, Sound, Sound Judgment

Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.

- Chapman Cohen

topic: Common Sense, Intelligence, May

Habits are powerful, but delicate. They can emerge outside our consciousness, or can be deliberately designed. They often occur without our permission, but can be reshaped by fiddling with their parts. They shape our lives far more than we realize—they are so strong, in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense.

- Charles Duhigg

source: "The Power of Habit". Book by Charles Duhigg, February 28, 2012.

topic: Strong, Powerful, Common Sense

For liberals, the observation that 'the peasants are revolting' is a pun. For conservatives, it is cause for uncharacteristic optimism. No matter how far the ideological pendulum swings in the short term, in the end the bedrock common sense of the American people will prevail.

- Charles Krauthammer

topic: Swings, People, Common Sense, Pendulums

The truth is, that common-sense, or thought as it first emerges above the level of the narrowly practical, is deeply imbued with that bad logical quality to which the epithet metaphysical is commonly applied; and nothing can clear it up but a severe course of logic.

- Charles Sanders Peirce

topic: Common Sense, Quality, Common, Epithet

Democratic Rep. Charles Schumer of New York made a plea to Livingston, the incoming speaker. These new hearings, these new subpoenas wave a red flag that common sense and common wisdom are not welcome here, .. Mr. Livingston, this may be the first and most important task you will ever face as speaker. Lead us out of this abyss.

- Charles Schumer

topic: New York, Common Sense, Important, Subpoenas, Red Flags

A quick and sound judgment, good common sense, kind feeling, and an instinctive perception of character, in these are the elements of what is called tact, which has so much to do with acceptability and success in life.

- Charles Simmons

topic: Character, Common Sense, Feelings, Sound Judgment

Common sense, alas in spite of our educational institutions, is a rare commodity.

- Christian Nestell Bovee

topic: Educational, Common Sense, Commodity, Educational Institutions

When women vote, Progressives can win. When women organize and bring some common sense to the conversation, it becomes more authentic.

- Christine Pelosi

topic: Winning, Common Sense, Vote

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

- Christmas Humphreys

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

topic: Common Sense, Common, Truth Is

The left no longer stands for common sense, as it did in the days of Tom Paine.

- Christopher Lasch

topic: Common Sense, Common, Paine, Tom Paine

The left has come to regard common sense - the traditional wisdom and folkways of the community - as an obstacle to progress and enlightenment.

- Christopher Lasch

topic: Common Sense, Community, Progress, Folkways

The left has lost touch with popular opinion, thereby making it possible for the right to present itself as the party of common sense.

- Christopher Lasch

topic: Party, Common Sense, Lost Friendship, Popular Opinion, Lost Friend

Extreme heroism springs from something that no scientific theory can fully explain; it's an illogical impulse that flies in the face of biology, psychology, actuarial statistics, and basic common sense.

- Christopher McDougall

topic: Spring, Common Sense, Psychology, Scientific Theory

Composers aren't daring enough. They're afraid of that sacred idol called 'common sense', which is the most dreadful thing I know - after all, it's no more than a religion founded to excuse the ubiquity of imbeciles!

- Claude Debussy

topic: Idols, Ubiquity, Common Sense

Today different ethnic groups and different nations come together due to common sense.

- Dalai Lama

topic: Common Sense, Together, Groups, Ethnic Groups

Small-scale fisheries should not be favoured over large-scale operations ebcause of romantic notions of rugged small operators battling both the elements and anonymous corporations. [They ought to be supported] because of the scientific evidence available to confirm the common-sense inference that local fishers, if given privileged access, will tend to avoid trashing their local stocks, while foreign fishers do not have such motivation.

- Daniel Pauly

topic: Motivation, Common Sense, Elements, Operators, Fisheries

And I know that the younger generation is doing things that are so ingenious. And for them it's not a matter of a political belief or an environmental stance. It's really just common sense

- Daryl Hannah

source: "Hollywood star takes eco-activism to Web". Interview with Vanessa McGrady, www.nbcnews.com. Jun 1, 2006.

topic: Common Sense, Political, Environmental, Ingenious, Political Beliefs

A Keyring? Achievements? These are not WoW-specific things. They are common sense. They exist in the real world.

- David Allen

topic: Real, Common Sense, Achievement

People are crying out for a Conservative Party that is decent, reasonable, common sense and in it for the long term of this country.

- David Cameron

topic: Country, Party, Common Sense

Our best theories are not only truer than common sense, they make more sense than common sense.

- David Deutsch

source: David Deutsch (2011). “The Fabric of Reality”, p.6, Penguin UK

topic: Common Sense, Common, Theory

The common-sense notion that 'there is a time and a place for everything' gets carried into a set of prescriptions which replicate the social order by assigning social meanings to spaces and times.

- David Harvey

topic: Order, Space, Common Sense

Because desperation breeds gullibility. People want to lose weight so much that their common sense shuts off.

- David L. Katz

topic: People, Common Sense, Weight, Gullibility

Without a concise set of rules to follow we would probably all have to resort to common sense

- David Thorne

source: David Thorne (2011). “The Internet is a Playground: Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius”, p.38, Penguin

topic: Common Sense, Common, Resorts, Concise

Use your brains, your common sense, and do not become an object. The way you look is important, but who you are and how you project it is eventually who you will become and how you will appear.

- Diane von Furstenberg

topic: Common Sense, Brain, Important

I have confidence in people's basic common sense.

- Dixie Lee Ray

topic: Confidence, People, Common Sense

The mind of man has no defense To equal plain, old common sense. This homely virtue don't despise, If you would be happy as well as wise.

- Don Herold

topic: Wise, Men, Common Sense

Common sense in religion is rare, and we are too often trying to be heroic instead of just ordinarily good and kind.

- Dorothy Day

topic: Common Sense, Trying, Heroic

You don't have to know anything about a subject as long as you use common sense and imagination, plus enthusiasm! I use all periods of design in my work, for, after all, decorative styles are simply indications of a manner of living.

- Dorothy Draper

topic: Long, Common Sense, Imagination

There has to be a common sense cutoff for craziness, and when that threshold is exceeded, then the criteria for publication should get far, far more stringent.

- Douglas Hofstadter

topic: Common Sense, Craziness, Threshold, Craziness Of Life

Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.

- Dr. An Wang

source: "Lessons: An Autobiography". Book by An Wang, September 22, 1986.

topic: Inspirational, Common Sense, Genius

It is only common sense to recognize that the great bulk of Americans, whether Republican or Democrat, face many common problems and agree on a number of basic objectives.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

topic: Numbers, Common Sense, Faces

It makes sense that there is no sense without God.

- Edith Schaeffer

topic: Common Sense, Common, Make Sense, Without God

Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.

- Edward Abbey

topic: Philosophy, Buddhism, Common Sense, Daily Living, World Literature

Truth is merely common sense, say the naive realist. Really? Then where, precisely, is the location of--a rainbow? In the air? In the eye? In between? Or somewhere else?

- Edward Abbey

topic: Eye, Air, Common Sense, Naive

Common sense is only a modification of talent. Genius is an exaltation of it. The difference is, therefore, in degree, not nature.

- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

topic: Nature, Differences, Common Sense, Modification

Mathematics is often erroneously referred to as the science of common sense. Actually, it may transcend common sense and go beyond either imagination or intuition. It has become a very strange and perhaps frightening subject from the ordinary point of view, but anyone who penetrates into it will find a veritable fairyland, a fairyland which is strange, but makes sense, if not common sense.

- Edward Kasner

source: Edward Kasner, James Newman (2013). “Mathematics and the Imagination”, p.8, Courier Corporation

topic: Views, Common Sense, Imagination

I claim that relativity and the rest of modern physics is not complicated. It can be explained very simply. It is only unusual or, put another way, it is contrary to common sense.

- Edward Teller

topic: Simple, Common Sense, Common, Modern Physics

We live in a world changing so rapidly that what we mean frequently by common sense is doing the thing that would have been right last year.

- Edwin Land

source: Edwin Land's statement to Polaroid Corporation employees (June 25, 1958) as quoted in Victor K. McElheny "Insisting on the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land" (p. 189), 1998.

topic: Mean, Years, Common Sense

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

topic: Stupid, Common Sense, Prejudice, Sagacity

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

topic: Air, Law, Common Sense, Amenable, New Inventions

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

- Elbert Hubbard

topic: Faith, Believe, Common Sense

The obscurity, incredibility and obscenity, so conspicuous in many parts of it, would justly condemn the works of a modern writer. It contains a mixture of inconsistency and contradiction; to call which the word of God, is the highest pitch of extravagance: it is to attribute to the deity that which any person of common sense would blush to confess himself the author of.

- Elihu Palmer

topic: Common Sense, Religion, Obscurity, Inconsistency

I find a lot of people say, "Oh organic and local's expensive and I just don't have time." And I'm like, well how much TV do you watch? Where are your priorities right now? I always take the time to eat well and eat locally because it's common sense.

- Ellen Page

topic: People, Common Sense, Priorities

I always take the time to eat well and eat locally because it's common sense.

- Ellen Page

topic: Common Sense, Common, Wells

I don't profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.

- Emily Dickinson

topic: Common Sense, Profound, Words Of Wisdom

I look forward to working with the NRA to come up with ways in which we can use common sense approaches to reduce the level of violence that we see - in our streets, and make the American people as safe as they possibly can be.

- Eric Holder

topic: People, Common Sense, Use, Nra

I understand the Second Amendment. I respect the Second Amendment. I think we need to use common sense tools to keep the American people safe, to keep our streets safe.

- Eric Holder

topic: Thinking, People, Common Sense

common sense is the enemy of romance

- Eric Jerome Dickey

source: Eric Jerome Dickey (2007). “Waking with Enemies”, p.148, Penguin

topic: Common Sense, Romance, Enemy

Don't leave hold of your common sense. Think about what you're doing and how the technology can enhance it. Don't think about technology first.

- Esther Dyson

topic: Thinking, Technology, Common Sense

The best prophet is common sense, our native wit.

- Euripides

topic: Common Sense, Prophet, Wit

Nose-to-tail eating is not a bloodlust, testosterone-fueled offal hunt. It's common sense, and it's all good stuff.

- Fergus Henderson

topic: Common Sense, Tails, Noses, Offal, Testosterone

Belief demands that you dispense with illusion after illusion, while contemporary common sense requires continual, fluffy pretending - pretending that might as well be systematic, it's so thoroughly incentivised by our culture.

- Francis Spufford

source: Francis Spufford (2012). “Unapologetic: Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense”, p.8, Faber & Faber

topic: Common Sense, Culture, Demand

If common sense has not the brilliancy of the sun, it has the fixity of the stars

- Francisco Largo Caballero

topic: Stars, Common Sense, Sun

It isn't common sense that is paramount in this world, it's wishful thinking.

- Francoise Sagan

topic: Thinking, Common Sense, World, Wishful Thinking, Paramount

There is nothing more uncommon than common sense.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

topic: Thinking, Common Sense, Common

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

topic: Two, Common Sense, Diversity

Real estate cannot be lost or stolen, nor can it be carried away. Purchased with common sense, paid for in full, and managed with reasonable care, it is about the safest investment in the world.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

topic: Real, Common Sense, World, Investing In Real Estate, Realtors

Introducing someone as a "Negro poet with a University degree" or again, quite simply, the expression, "a great black poet." These ready-made phrases, which seem in a common-sense way to fill a need-or have a hidden subtlety, a permanent rub.

- Frantz Fanon

topic: Expression, Common Sense, Black, University Degrees

A person of any mental quality has ideas of his own. This is common sense.

- Franz Liszt

topic: Ideas, Common Sense, Quality

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

- Fred L. Turner

topic: Hard Work, Common Sense, Use

The problem is that agencies sometimes lose sight of common sense as they create regulations.

- Fred Thompson

topic: Agency, Sight, Common Sense

Every foreign policy of every major nation involves reason, common sense, carrots and sticks. You can't have all carrots and no sticks.

- Fred Thompson

topic: Common Sense, Sticks, Reason

Obamacare represents a shocking display of political arrogance. It's about time Washington started listening to Americans' common sense voices.

- Fred Upton

topic: Voice, Obamacare, Common Sense

Common sense tells us that this explosion of media sources should eliminate any concern over a lack of diversity of views in the marketplace and competition.

- Fred Upton

topic: Views, Media, Common Sense, Lack Of Common Sense

Only sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research.

- Friedrich Engels

topic: Wall, Adventure, Common Sense, Four Walls

The mathematician is in much more direct contact with reality. ... [Whereas] the physicist's reality, whatever it may be, has few or none of the attributes which common sense ascribes instinctively to reality. A chair may be a collection of whirling electrons.

- G. H. Hardy

topic: Science, Reality, Common Sense

I know a lot of celebrity types go for Kabbalah and Scientology. But why pay 10 per cent of your earnings to someone when it's all common sense: treat others as you'd like to be treated yourself.

- Gail Porter

source: "This much I know". Interview with Michael Odell, www.theguardian.com. March 19, 2006.

topic: Common Sense, Kabbalah, Pay

Tonight was a great opportunity to take on the political status quo that has given us trillion dollar deficits and put millions out of work. Our objective was to inject some common sense into the conversation among Republicans at a time when business-as-usual simply won't work.

- Gary Johnson

topic: Opportunity, Common Sense, Political, Challenging Status Quo, Challenging The Status Quo

Consumers are realizing the benefits of in-car entertainment and navigation systems. When used properly, these products are great tools that help drivers focus on the road. Consumers need to remember to follow state laws, watch the road and use common sense when putting these and other products to work.

- Gary Shapiro

topic: Law, Common Sense, Car

Sustainable farms are to today's headlong rush toward global destruction what the monasteries were to the Dark Ages: places to preserve human skills and crafts until some semblance of common sense and common purpose returns to the public mind.

- Gene Logsdon

source: Gene Logsdon (2000). “Living at Nature's Pace: Farming and the American Dream”, p.13, Chelsea Green Publishing

topic: Dark, Skills, Common Sense, Common Purpose, Farms

Ability to type on a computer terminal is no guarantee of sanity, intelligence, or common sense.

- Gene Spafford

topic: Common Sense, Guarantees, Computer

Theologians always try to turn the Bible into a book without common sense.

- Georg C. Lichtenberg

topic: Book, Common Sense, Religion

The same principles which at first view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to common sense.

- George Berkeley

source: George Berkeley (1949). “Works”

topic: Men, Views, Common Sense

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

- George Eliot

topic: Common Sense, Water, Pumps

Common sense, in so far as it exists, is all for the bourgeoisie. Nonsense is the privilege of the aristocracy. The worries of the world are for the common people.

- George Jean Nathan

source: George Jean Nathan (1960). “The magic mirror: selected writings on the theatre”

topic: Common Sense, Worry, People

That rarest gift to Beauty, Common Sense!

- George Meredith

topic: Beauty, Common Sense, Common

Nonsense is so good only because common sense is so limited.

- George Santayana

source: George Santayana (2012). “The Sense of Beauty”, p.153, Courier Corporation

topic: Inspirational, Common Sense, Common, Nonsensical, Talking Nonsense

...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

topic: Dream, Dark, Common Sense, Physical Science, Impulsive

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

- George Santayana

topic: Science, Common Sense, Perception

Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.

- George Seaton

topic: Faith, Believe, Common Sense, Hope And Faith

This is an age in which one cannot find common sense without a search warrant.

- George Will

source: George F. Will (1999). “The Woven Figure: Conservatism and America's Fabric”, p.312, Simon and Schuster

topic: Common Sense, Age, Common

Those fine eyes of hers had a disconcertingly direct gaze, and very often twinkled in a manner disturbing to male egotism. She had common-sense too, and what man wanted the plainly matter-of-fact, when he could enjoy instead Sophia's delicious folly?

- Georgette Heyer

topic: Eye, Men, Common Sense, Delicious

Depend upon it, you are just the sort of girl a man would be glad to have for his sister! You don't even know how to swoon, and I daresay if you tried you would make wretched work of it, for all you have is common sense, and of what use is that, pray?

- Georgette Heyer

topic: Girl, Men, Common Sense

Conservation is the application of common sense to the common problems for the common good.

- Gifford Pinchot

source: Gifford Pinchot (2017). “Gifford Pinchot: Selected Writings”, p.43, Penn State Press

topic: Common Sense, Problem, Conservation

To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams.

- Giorgio de Chirico

topic: Dream, Art, Common Sense

You cannot take away freedom to protect it, you cannot destroy the free market to save it, and you cannot uphold freedom of speech by silencing those with whom you disagree. To take rights away to defend them or to spend your way out of debt defies common sense.

- Glenn Beck

source: Glenn Beck (2009). “Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Ouf-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine”, p.17, Simon and Schuster

topic: Rights, Common Sense, Freedom Of Speech, Silencing

It sounds plausible enough tonight, but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.

- H. G. Wells

topic: Morning, Common Sense, Waiting

95 percent of economics is common sense made complicated, and even for the remaining 5 percent, the essential reasoning, if not all the technical details, can be explained in plain terms.

- Ha-Joon Chang

topic: Common Sense, Essentials, Details

95% of Economics is common sense deliberately made complicated.

- Ha-Joon Chang

topic: Common Sense, Complicated, Economics

America deserves common sense immigration reform that reflects our interests and our values as Americans.

- Hank Johnson

source: "Time Is Right for Comprehensive Immigration Reform" by Rep. Hank Johnson, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 10, 2013.

topic: America, Common Sense, Immigration

Paradox is the sharpest scalpel in the satchel of science. Nothing concentrates the mind as effectively, regardless of whether it pits two competing theories against each other, or theory against observation, or a compelling mathematical deduction against ordinary common sense.

- Hans Christian von Baeyer

source: Hans Christian Von Baeyer (2004). “Information: The New Language of Science”, p.204, Harvard University Press

topic: Two, Common Sense, Mind, Scalpels

No, the state is anything but the result of a contract! No one with even just an ounce of common sense would agree to such a contract. I have a lot of contracts in my files, but nowhere is there one like this. The state is the result of aggressive force and subjugation. It has evolved without contractual foundation, just like a gang of protection racketeers. And concerning the struggle of all against all: that is a myth.

- Hans-Hermann Hoppe

topic: Struggle, Common Sense, Foundation, Subjugation

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

- Harriet Beecher Stowe

topic: Common Sense, Common

I believe I have a healthy common sense and therefore have no need for religion.

- Heidi Klum

topic: Believe, Common Sense, Healthy

My success was not based so much on any great intelligence but on great common sense.

- Helen Gurley Brown

source: "Helen Gurley Brown's feminist legacy", www.sfgate.com. August 14, 2012.

topic: Success, Common Sense, Intellectual

Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

topic: Science, Common Sense, Experience, Prevision

Common sense is the measure of the possible.

- Henri Frederic Amiel

topic: Common Sense, Common

Liberal politics meant the politics of common-sense.

- Henry Campbell-Bannerman

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

topic: Common Sense, Common

Management is a curious phenomenon. It is generously paid, enormously influential, and significantly devoid of common sense

- Henry Mintzberg

topic: Common Sense, Risk, Management

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

topic: Home, Common Sense, Joy, True Home

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

topic: Men, Common Sense, May

The illogical man is what advertising is after. This is why advertising is so anti-rational; this is why it aims at uprooting not only the rationality of man but his common sense.

- Henryk Skolimowski

topic: Men, Common Sense, Uprooting, Illogical

I'm not a professional politician. I'm a professional problem solver, and I believe we should cut the salaries of senators and congressmen 10 percent until they balance the budget. I call that conservative common sense.

- Herman Cain

topic: Believe, Cutting, Common Sense, Problem Solvers

The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you are not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one. All the shortcuts and economies and common-sense changes that your native intelligence suggests to you are mistakes. Learn to quash them. Constantly ask yourself, "How would I do this if I were a fool?" Throttle down your mind to a crawl. Then you will never go wrong.

- Herman Wouk

topic: Mistake, Common Sense, Finding Yourself

Common sense is very uncommon.

- Horace Greeley

topic: Common Sense, Common, Uncommon

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

- Horace Walpole

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

topic: Wisdom, Common Sense, Common

The only hope lies in the fact that the American people - like people everywhere - are basically decent people with common sense.

- Howard Zinn

topic: Lying, People, Common Sense

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

topic: People, Common Sense, Doe, Dropping Bombs

Experience as well as common sense indicated that the most reliable method of avoiding self-extinction was not to equip oneself with the means to accomplish it in the first place.

- Iain Banks

topic: Mean, Self, Common Sense

I think midwifery was developed by people with common sense, people who were close to nature, and people who observed other species of mammals and saw that there were lessons there to be learned.

- Ina May Gaskin

topic: Thinking, People, Common Sense, Midwifery

my life has been wonderful. I have done what I felt like. I was given courage and I was given adventure and that has carried me along. And then also a sense of humor and a little bit of common sense. It has been a very rich life.

- Ingrid Bergman

topic: Gratitude, Adventure, Common Sense, Rich Life

Simplicity and common sense should characterize planning and strategic direction.

- Ingvar Kamprad

topic: Common Sense, Simplicity, Planning, Ikea

Fundamentalists are less concerned to be systematic and rational than to be humble and faithful, accepting God's commandments because they come from God, not because they proceed from common sense or sophisticated reason.

- Israel Shenker

source: Israel Shenker (1985). “Coat of Many Colors: Pages from Jewish Life”, Doubleday Books

topic: Humble, Humility, Common Sense, Accepting God

You have to have the common sense.

- Ivana Trump

topic: Common Sense, Common

There are certain things that words on paper can never make a crime, .. There are certain acts that by sheer common sense are not crimes.

- Jack Kevorkian

topic: Common Sense, Paper, Crime, Words On Paper, Sheer

Am I a criminal? The world knows I'm not a criminal. What are they trying to put me in jail for? You've lost common sense in this society because of religious fanaticism and dogma.

- Jack Kevorkian

source: "Jail: An Inmates Survival Guide". Panama Publishing Inc. Book, p. 24, 2007.

topic: Religious, Jail, Common Sense, Fanaticism, Religious Love

Much as we do not permit convicted pedophiles to teach kindergarten or convicted hijackers to board airplanes, common sense dictates that individuals who have been imprisoned for plotting violence against abortion clinics should never again be permitted anywhere near such facilities.

- Jacob M. Appel

source: "The Case for an Anti-Abortion Violence Registry". www.huffingtonpost.com. July 30, 2009.

topic: Airplane, Common Sense, Abortion, Against Abortion

The light of common sense is fundamentally the same light as that of science, that is to say, the natural light of the intellect. But in common sense this light does not return upon itself by critical reflection, and is not perfected by what we shall learn to know as a scientific habit.

- Jacques Maritain

topic: Reflection, Light, Common Sense, Critical Reflection, Natural Light

I take it that I must be the eternal playfellow of time. For piety and common-sense and death are rightfully time's toys; and it is with these three that I divert myself.

- James Branch Cabell

topic: Time, Common Sense, Three

Acting is just common sense. It isn't hard if you put yourself aside and just do what the writer wrote.

- James Garner

source: James Garner, Jon Winokur, Julie Andrews (2012). “The Garner Files: A Memoir”, p.169, Simon and Schuster

topic: Common Sense, Acting, Common

But I go out as a missionary not that I may follow the dictates of common sense, but that I may obey that command of Christ, 'Go into all the world and preach.' He who said 'preach,' said also, 'Go ye into and preach,' and what Christ hath joined together let not man put asunder.

- James Gilmour

source: James Gilmour (1892). “James Gilmour of Mongolia: His Diaries, Letters and Reports”

topic: Men, Common Sense, Together

I go out as a missionary not that I may follow the dictates of common sense, but that I may obey that command of Christ.

- James Gilmour

topic: Common Sense, Missionary, May

Philosophy is common sense with big words.

- James Madison

topic: Philosophy, Medicine, Common Sense

The question of common sense is always: 'what is it good for?' - a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.

- James Russell Lowell

source: James Russell Lowell (1871). “My Study Windows”, p.250

topic: Common Sense, Rose, Cabbage

A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.

- James Russell Lowell

topic: Common Sense, Profound, Genius, Statesmanship

The greatness of common sense, and its title to reverence, appear in this, that it deals with vast complexity, that is, with the innumerable elements of a situation. Common sense discerns and judges a path through this knotted and tangled maze.

- James Vila Blake

topic: Greatness, Common Sense, Judging

Common sense is so just an understanding that it rises almost to a virtue; in truth, it involves virtues and their participation in judgment. For sound sense implies all powers uniting; none too prominent, so as to tyrannize; none too small, so as to be overborne.

- James Vila Blake

topic: Common Sense, Understanding, Sound

The longer I live, the more I am certified that men, in all that relates to their own health, have not common sense! whether it be their pride, or their impatience, or their obstinancy, or their ingrained spirit of contradiction, that stupefies and misleads them, the result is always a certain amount of idiocy, or distraction in their dealings with their own bodies! ... either by their wild impatience of bodily suffering, and the exaggerated moan they make over it, or else by their reckless defiance of it, and neglect of every dictate of prudence!

- Jane Welsh Carlyle

topic: Pride, Men, Common Sense, Dealings, Idiocy

And here come the Left Brothers - Al "747" Sharpton and Jesse "DC 10" Jackson - barreling in for a landing on top of Goodell's dome. And this time every black person with an ounce of common sense and self-respect is riding shotgun with Jesse and Al, who have justifiably voiced their displeasure with Limbaugh's ownership bid.

- Jason Whitlock

source: "Keep Rush Limbaugh Out of the NFL". Fox Sports, October 13, 2009.

topic: Brother, Self, Common Sense, Shotguns

I could almost see common sense and denial fighting away at each other within her. In the end, denial won, as it so often does.

- Jasper Fforde

source: Jasper Fforde (2003). “Lost in a Good Book”, Viking Adult

topic: Fighting, Common Sense, Doe

If skills sold, truth be told, I'd probably be Lyrically, Talib Kweli Truthfully, I wanna rhyme like Common Sense But I did 5 mill' - I ain't been rhyming like Common since.

- Jay-Z

topic: Rap, Skills, Common Sense

To discover the true principles of morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods. They need but common sense. They have only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of each of the members who compose it, and they will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury to beings of the species.

- Jean Meslier

topic: Men, Common Sense, Atheism

There can be no compromise with war; it cannot be reformed or controlled; cannot be disciplined into decency or codified into common sense; for war is the slaughter of human beings, temporarily regarded as enemies, on as large a scale as possible.

- Jeannette Rankin

topic: Peace, War, Common Sense, No Compromise

I never got a formal education. So my intellect is my common sense. I don't have anything else going for me. And my common sense opens the door to instinct.

- Jerry Lewis

topic: Doors, Common Sense, Instinct

Every act of energy conservation... is more than just common sense: I tell you it is an act of patriotism.

- Jimmy Carter

topic: Common Sense, Energy, Conservation, Energy Conservation, Public Transportation

I have problems with a religion which says that faith in itself is enough for a ticket to heaven. In other words, that the ideal is your ability to manipulate your own common sense to accept something your intellect rejects. It's the same model of intellectual submission that dictatorships have used throughout time, the concept of a higher reasoning without any obligation to discharge the burden of proof.

- Jo Nesbo

topic: Common Sense, Heaven, Intellectual, Reasoning, Burden Of Proof

Common sense as well as common values all lead us. Our future depends upon it and our present is going to be vastly better when we get back to these basics.

- Joan Blades

topic: Common Sense, Basics, Our Future

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

- Joan Crawford

source: The New York Times Interview, 1964.

topic: Best Friend, Good Friend, Common Sense

I will use my position as chairman emeritus on the Energy and Commerce Committee to try to bring some common sense to EPA regulations.

- Joe Barton

topic: Common Sense, Trying, Regulation, Epa

If you voluntarily label a product as being unsuitable for kids and then turn around and market it directly to kids in contradiction of your ratings system, then you should be held accountable just like any other company in America that misleads consumers, .. That's not censorship. That's common sense.

- Joe Lieberman

topic: Kids, America, Common Sense

[I shall not] discuss scientific method, but rather the methods of scientists. We proceed by common sense and ingenuity. There are no rules, only the principles of integrity and objectivity, with a complete rejection of all authority except that of fact.

- Joel Henry Hildebrand

source: Joel Henry Hildebrand (1985). “Science in the Making”, Praeger Pub Text

topic: Integrity, Objectivity, Common Sense

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

topic: Meaningful, Common Sense, Humanity, Good Sense

I would rather be erring on the side of common-sense pragmatism and doing everything possible so that I felt that no stone was left unturned in terms of trying to protect school children.

- John B. Larson

topic: Children, School, Common Sense, Pragmatism, Erring

Common-sense is part of the home-made ideology of those who have been deprived of fundamental learning, of those who have been kept ignorant.

- John Berger

topic: Home, Common Sense, Ignorant