quotations about common sense
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
attributed, Mathematics, Queen and Servant of the Sciences
Common sense is the average sensibility and intelligence of men undisturbed by individual peculiarities.
W. R. ALGER
attributed, Day's Collacon
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.
ANONYMOUS
Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense.
OSCAR WILDE
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Common sense is judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race.
GIAMBATTISTA VICO
The New Science
Often, there is a temptation not to conduct research because the answer to a question is "common sense." Unfortunately, common sense is not so common and is often wrong.
MICHAEL G. AAMODT
Industrial/Organizational Psychology
Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
attributed, Women Know Everything!
Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Walden
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
Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age
That common sense could be used for teaching people of how to reason doesn't seem implausible, yet common sense mostly tells us just what common sense is and not necessarily how one arrived at common sense or why it is common.
MARION LEDWIG
Common Sense: Its History
Common sense is a kind of intuitive judgment that some men possess, enabling them to give good advice upon most matters. It is gained by close observation, which stores the mind with a stock of useful knowledge, and the happy tact of using the same as opportunities arise.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it--even if I have said it--unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
PETER USTINOV
attributed, Treasury of Wisdom
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
An EPZ Introduction to Philosophy
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
Essays
The essence of common sense is to stay in close contact with life as it is lived.
SCOTT P. SEGREST
America and the Political Philosophy of Common Sense
One pound of learning requires ten pounds of common sense to apply it.
PERSIAN PROVERB
If a man can have only one kind of sense, let him have common sense. If he has that and uncommon sense, too, he is not far from genius.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Common Sense and Education: The more you think you have of one, the less you think you need of the other.
TOM HEEHLER
The Well-Spoken Thesaurus
Common sense is as rare as genius--is the basis of genius.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"Experience," Essays
Common sense is like deoderant. The people who need it most never use it.
VINCENT THNAY
Of Quips 'N' Quirks