"Commonty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... look, Doc, let's don't get on that bit. Maybe I'm just a country boy but I'm as smart as the next man. Just because some of you eggheads spend half your life in college don't mean you've got any monopoly on good common sense. I went to the school of hard knocks, understand, and I got plenty of diplomas to prove it. Take it ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... to me what you want,' said Wych Hazel, 'I should say, patience, and moderation, and a little practical common sense.' ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... of the property. Augustine Washington was very kind to his younger brother, and gave him a good practical education as a land surveyor. The younger man was a bold athlete and fond of studying military campaigns. He was full of courage, industrious, honest, and of great common sense. Before he was twenty he had surveyed large tracts of wilderness, and had done his work well amidst great difficulties. When Dinwiddie wanted a messenger to take his letter to the French commander on the Ohio, George Washington's employer at once suggested him as ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... first instance (for the "Citizen of Geneva" did not meddle much with cold steel), it was all very like a pupil, and (in the Citizen's later years) a friend, of Rousseau, carrying out his master's ideas with a stronger dose of Christianity, but with quite as little common sense. I have not seen (or remembered) any more exact account of Saint-Pierre's relations with Napoleon than that given by the excellent Aime-Martin, an academic euphemiser of the French kind. But, even reading between his lines, they must ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... the soil of Britain is superior to that of the peasantry in every other country of Europe. The inevitable increase of demand for labour will even better their condition, according to the operation of a law apparent to every man of common sense, but which is hopelessly concealed from the eyes of these spurious regenerators of the times. It is impossible to transform the manufacturer, even were that trade slack, into a railway labourer; the habits and constitution of the two classes being essentially different ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... it was different. He was, in no solitary sense of the word, a woman's man. He admired them in an abstract way, and he was ready to fight for them, or die for them, at any time such a course became necessary. But his sentiment was entirely a matter of common sense. His chivalry was born and bred of the mountains and the open and had nothing in common with the insincere brand which develops in the softer and more luxurious laps of civilization. Years of aloneness had put their mark upon him. ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... officer as they proceeded on their walk, "listen to the reason of the thing, and consider whether such a custom can obtain, as that which they term the duello, in any country of civilization and common sense, to say nothing of one which is blessed with the domination of the most rare Alexius Comnenus. Two great lords, or high officers, quarrel in the court, and before the reverend person of the Emperor. They dispute about a point of fact. Now, instead ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... are! That's just where it is!" said Smith, with some logic, but in a tone a wife uses in argument (which tone, by the way, especially if backed by logic or common sense, makes a man wild sooner than anything else ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... never invites anybody to dinner except Porcher, the chief of the claque.* Frederick and Porcher "thee-thou" each other. Porcher has common sense, good manners, and plenty of money, which he lends gallantly to authors whose rent is due. Porcher is the man of whom Harel said: "He likes, protects and disdains ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... his degree, he took, besides his Latin and Greek books, the whole Hebrew Bible, but was only examined in the Psalms. He gained a triumphant first-class, and the next year, 1803, he carried off the English prose essay prize. The theme was "Common Sense." He had not in the least expected to gain the prize, and had not even mentioned the competition to his friends, so that their delight and surprise were equal. That same year, Reginald Heber was happy in the subject ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... he became head of the cabinet. In 1836, the government having been defeated on a proposal to reduce the five per cents, he once more resigned, and never returned to official life. He had remained in power long enough to prove what honesty of purpose, experience of affairs, and common sense can accomplish when allied with authority. The debt that France and Europe owed him may be measured by comparing the results of his policy with that of his successors under not dissimilar circumstances. He had found France isolated and Europe full of the rumours of war; he left ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... adaptation of means to ends, and that spiritual knight-errantry which undertakes the championship of every novel project of reform, scouring the world in search of distressed schemes held in durance by common sense and vagaries happily spellbound by ridicule. He must learn that, although the most needful truth may be unpopular, it does not follow that unpopularity is a proof of the truth of his doctrines or the expediency ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... little common sense, my Lords, Only undoing all that has been done (Yet so as it may seem we but confirm it), 385 Our victory is assured. We must entice Her Majesty from the sty, and make the Pigs Believe that the contents of the GREEN BAG Are ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... were much interested in it except infidels and politicians—a sufficiently absurd position for a professed teacher of the people to assume. Doubtless it is a folly to fan into flame the slumbering embers of a quarrel, but it is a greater folly to pretend, in the face of the common sense of the people, that all signs of fire are extinguished or never existed where there is so much inflammable material about and the "wind of doctrine" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... violent and uncontrolled side, which every real man has in him, wanted to "smash" Stanton; yearned for an excuse perhaps even to kill him and rid Sanda forever of a brute, no matter what the consequences to himself. But the side of him where common sense had taken refuge wished to keep neutral for Sanda's sake, in order to watch over her and protect her through everything. When he heard Stanton's call he was not far from the tent he had lent Sanda. She, and everything of hers which ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... made to say even a few words; but he begged and prayed me not to let my good nature get the better of my prudence on that account, and not to humor her, however I might feel tempted to do so—for if I did, she would be dumb as well as deaf most certainly. He told me my own common sense would show me the reason why; but I suppose I was too distressed or too stupid to understand things as I ought. He had to explain it to me in so many words, that if she wasn't constantly exercised in speaking, she would lose her power ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... his utterances were certainly void of common sense. Because, out of amused affection for him, no one contradicted his impossible statements, he refused to keep them in bounds. When people recounted in his hearing the glorious history of Nayanjore with absurd exaggerations he would accept all they said with the utmost gravity, ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... he, with an air of importance, "I tell you what, it is against all reason, it is contrary to common sense and everything else, that you remain any longer riveted down to this old bench. It will be your ruin; 'pend upon it, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... to lessen the evil have tended to increase it. In the first place, there was the master-evil of the poor-laws. Malthus points out the demoralising effects of these laws in chapters full of admirable common sense, which he was unfortunately able to enforce by fresh illustrations in successive editions. He attends simply to the stimulus to population. He thinks that if the laws had never existed, the poor would now have been much better off.[251] If the laws ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... enacting the parts of shepherdess and shepherd. She had been strengthened in this, her first love, by the former illusions of her imagination; and without one thought of evil, she had lost her common sense, and had followed her lover instead of attending to her mamma. Oh, young damsels, who are fond of pastorals, and can dream of young cavaliers and ancient castles!—who hear, on one side, the soft whisperings of a lover, and on the other, the sensible remarks of your mother!—need I tell ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... and cast out the stale leaven of Hellenism before it sours the loaf? Common sense is mighty, but whether it shall prevail in Greece and the Balkans and Europe lies on the knees ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... who called themselves his friends had been strong enough in their friendship to have so advised him. For even in the moments—and they were many—when he thought much of himself, "The Big Wind" had glimmerings of common sense. ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... resources of God, and at the same time forming the fundamental nature and ground-structure of the soul. A person may live—many persons do—in the outer region of the self, using the natural instincts with which he is supplied, pursuing the goals of life which appeal to common sense and steering the earthly course by custom and by reason, but it is always possible to have a wider range of experience, to live in deeper currents, and to draw upon a profounder source of insight. This deeper experience—which is the basis ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... ministry I did not, as a general rule, preach my own sermons, but Newman's, which I abridged and simplified, for in that day I thought them most sound in doctrine, practical and full of good common sense. Indeed, as far as Church teaching went, they were, to my mind, perfect. They stated doctrines and drew manifest conclusions; but my people were not satisfied with them then; and I can see now, thank God! that, with all their excellences, they were utterly ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... time the hard-headed frontiersmen who came to Kansas for honest purposes spoke in plain language. The first resolution settled the Slavery issue. It declared that Slavery was a curse and that Kansas should be free of this curse. But that as a matter of common sense they would consent to any reasonable adjustment in regard to the few slaves that had already been brought into ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... has therefore this very difficult matter to deal with, and while Europe is wondering what to do with him, he is showing that after all he has a great deal of courage and common sense. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 16, February 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... And his common sense reassured him somewhat. If the man were a lover, he could not pray so, on this, the night before her wedding to another. It was not in human, male nature, he felt, to do such an unselfish ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... begotten by such an illusive being? Shall it not also be doomed to vanish with him into the nothingness whence he came and which he now really is, if he only knew it? Sir Monier Williams aptly remarks,—"Common sense tells an Englishman that he really exists himself and that everything he sees around him really exists also. He cannot abandon these two primary convictions. Not so the Hindu Vedantist. Dualism is his bugbear, and common sense, when it maintains any kind of ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... go home and get a bite to eat," said Stevenson, with much common sense. "You've got glory enough ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... his bearings in a fog of sentiment. He knew, knew passionately, that he had done right; but the silence of his old friend to him through those last hours left a sting that no reasoning could assuage. "He told good-by to the rest of the boys; but not to me." And nothing that I could point out in common sense turned him from the thread of his own argument. He worked round the circle again to self-justification. "Was it him I was deserting? Was not the deserting done by him the day I spoke my mind about stealing calves? I have ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... to serve this here notice on John Bull. Now, it's my duty, as your attorney, to tell you that you may drive him to go over to that cuss, Davis." (Uncle Sam considers.) In this instance, President Lincoln is given credit for judgment and common sense, his advice to his Uncle Sam to be prudent being sound. There was trouble all along the Canadian border during the War, while Canada was the refuge of Northern conspirators and Southern spies, who, at times, crossed the line and inflicted great damage upon the States bordering on it. The plot ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... interesting to every reader beyond Robinson Crusoe; and above all, the free, conversational style in which this knowledge is imparted, is one of their greatest attractions. The author does not account for effects by any tedious appeal to our judgment, but he strikes at once at our feelings and common sense, and we become, as it were, identified with the dictates and impulses of his heroes. This merit belongs to book-effect, as situations belong to stage-effect; the endings of his chapters are like good exits—we are sure to be curious as to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... men and the chief commanding officer, Colonel Stewart, it would be well to have a meeting in the Y. M. C. A. where they could be properly informed, where they could see ALL that was going on and not be deluded by the rumors that other groups of the company were doing something else, and where the common sense of the great, great majority of the men would show them the foolishness of the whole thing. And he invited ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... it were his eye-glass, but dropped it suddenly. He turned pale for a minute, then caught it as suddenly again, and thrust it into his waistcoat. But Vic had seen, and she had very calm, intelligent eyes, and a vast deal of common sense, though she had only come from out Tibbooburra way. She kept her eyes on him kindly, knowing that he would speak in time. They were alone, for most of the people of Wadgery were away at a picnic. There is always one moment when a man who has ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... riches for his church. She did not believe that Tull had been actuated solely by his minister's zeal to save her soul. She doubted her interpretation of one of his dark sayings—that if she were lost to him she might as well be lost to heaven. Jane Withersteen's common sense took arms against the binding limits of her religion; and she doubted that her Bishop, whom she had been taught had direct communication with God—would damn her soul for refusing to marry a Mormon. As for Tull and his churchmen, when they had harassed her, perhaps made her poor, they ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... and the hawser sagged into the water as the strain was released. Whatever Little's limitations were as a seaman, he lacked nothing of common sense; he saw that the ship was independent of the line now, and Barry received another shock while trying to decide how to get his ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... the needs of this readjustment period, the volunteer should be an optimist, and should exercise common sense in guiding the adult over the first lap of the unfamiliar road. I have advised the volunteers who are now in France, and those preparing to go there, to take writing boards, games, bright, pithy stories, and a lot of nonsense verse. I have told these Red Cross workers that they themselves ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... you mention him? Of course he will be angry, and call me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor lawyer—especially when I had such a much better offer. I suppose he will be here to-night. You must see him, mother, and explain things as pleasantly as possible. It would ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... widest influence on public opinion was Horace Greeley. Through his New York Tribune he reached an immense audience, to a great part of whom the paper was a kind of political Bible. His words struck home by their common sense, passion, and close sympathy with the common people. A graduate of the farm and printing office, he was in close touch with the free, plain, toiling, American people, and in no man had they a better representative or ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... been deeply culpable. Common sense, common knowledge of men and women should have warned me that there might be danger. But I looked upon the matter as our own—as between us only. I confess that I have not till now thought of that part of it, but surely—You ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... merchant still in trade, and was out on his first visit to the Lake Country. He appeared much like the Squire, only a little more stately and active, and he possessed great practical wisdom and fine common sense. He carried a rich country nature to the city, and he had cultured it finely, and it was bearing fair and mellow fruit. He had a double life in consequence, and country life citified, ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... together, I saw a microcosm of the strange barren life of the sea where men float about for years like driftwood. And out of all this ebbing tide of aimless, happy-go-lucky humanity McFee had chanced upon this boy from Amsterdam and had tried to pound into him some good sound common sense. ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... if you look at it straight-forrard; for a river's a river, and if you've got a mill, you must have water to turn it; and it's no use telling me Pivart's erigation and nonsense won't stop my wheel; I know what belongs to water better than that. Talk to me o' what th' engineers say! I say it's common sense, as Pivart's dikes must do me an injury. But if that's their engineering, I'll put Tom to it by-and-by, and he shall see if he can't find a bit more sense in th' engineering business than ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... was unbefitting, And flesh and blood no longer bore it, The Court of Common Sense then sitting, Summon'd the culprits both ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... hereafter to spread a luster on the stage of two continents. At the same time they are full either of a ridiculous praise which is blind to the presence of the least fault, and would have turned the head of a young girl not endowed with the sturdy common sense possessed by Mary Anderson; or they are marked by a vindictive animosity which defeats its very object, and practically attracts public notice in favor of an actress it is obviously meant to crush. These newspaper criticisms are further amusing as showing the family likeness which exists ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... as possible, and then dispatch him to sea. Let the captains ship their own crews on board the ship, and do away with the system of advances. But, at any rate, do learn to treat the sailor as if he were not altogether a fool. He has sense, plenty of it, shrewd, strong, common sense, and more real gentlemanly feeling than we on shore generally suppose, a good deal of faith, and certain standing principles of sea-morality. But at the same time he has prejudices and whims utterly unaccountable to men living on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... full of other people's thoughts. Subsequently, all the opinions that have sprung from misapplied ideas have to be rectified by a lengthy experience; and it is seldom that they are completely rectified. This is why so few men of learning have such sound common sense as is ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Buchanites,—surely in itself a convincing proof of the degeneracy of the times in the matter of religion,—we have an interesting reflection which gives us some insight into the poet's mind. 'This, my dear Sir, is one of the many instances of the folly in leaving the guidance of sound reason and common sense in matters of religion. Whenever we neglect or despise those sacred monitors, the whimsical notions of a perturbed brain are taken for the immediate influences of the Deity, and the wildest fanaticism and the most inconsistent absurdities will ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Leibnitz's doctrine of a pre-established harmony; which he certainly borrowed from Spinoza, who had himself taken the hint from Des Cartes's animal machines, was in its common interpretation too strange to survive the inventor—too repugnant to our common sense; which is not indeed entitled to a judicial voice in the courts of scientific philosophy; but whose whispers still exert a strong secret influence. Even Wolf, the admirer and illustrious systematizer of the Leibnitzian doctrine, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... deal of sound reason and common sense in that argument of yours, George, and, upon my word, I don't know that we could do better than act upon it," answered ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... Friedrich writes before leaving for Saxony: "The Peace between the English and the French is much farther off than was thought;—so many oppositions do the Spaniards raise, or rather do the French,—busy duping this buzzard of an English Minister, who has not common sense." [Schoning, iii. 480 (To Henri: "Peterswaldau, 17th October, 1762").] Never fear, your Majesty: a man with Havanas and Manillas of that kind to fling about at random, is certain to bring Peace, if resolved ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... legislature was incompetent to set aside, though as inconsistent with the declarations of parliament in the statute book, and with the whole practice of the English constitution, as it is repugnant to nature and common sense, was yet warmly insisted upon by the high church party. Such an argument, as might naturally be expected, operated rather to provoke the Whigs to perseverance than to dissuade them from their measure: it ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... or play golf, we do not simply go in and do our utmost; we apply the best technical skill to the art; we seek to learn how, from the experience of the past, and through the best instructors obtainable. Both common sense and experience show that the use of the human voice in the art of speaking is not the one thing, among all things, that cannot be successfully taught. The results of vocal teaching show, on the contrary, from multitudes of examples, from volumes of testimony, that there ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... one; so that, when we had been carried off our feet that length, my wind was fairly gone, and a sick dwalm came over me, lights of all manner of colours, red, blue, green, and orange, dancing before me, that entirely deprived me of common sense; till, on opening my eyes in the dark, I found myself leaning with my broadside against the wall on the opposite side of the close. It was some time before I minded what had happened; so, dreading skaith, I found first the one arm, and then the other, to see if they were broken—syne ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... wear fine clothes, the third that he should not eat of the spoil and the fourth that he should not put off praying till after the proper period. It is said that there is no wealth more profitable than understanding, and there is no understanding like common sense and prudence, and there is no prudence like piety; that there is no means of drawing near to God like good morals, no measure like good breeding, no traffic like good works and no profit like earning the Divine favour; that there is no temperance like standing within the limits of the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Epping Forest, and his eye that twinkled as black as a gipsy's, that no woman who knew the world would make a comparison betwixt the lads. As for poor neighbour Ramsay himself, the man," she said, "was a civil neighbour, and a learned man, doubtless, and might be a rich man if he had common sense to back his learning; and doubtless, for a Scot, neighbour Ramsay was nothing of a bad man, but he was so constantly grimed with smoke, gilded with brass filings, and smeared with lamp- black and oil, that ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... I was soon clear of the city, and on a fine smooth road, and, as I threw myself back in the corner of the chaise, I could not help asking myself the question—what was the purport of my journey? As the reader will perceive, I was wholly governed by impulses, and never allowed reason or common sense to stand in the way of my feelings. "What have I to do?" replied I to myself; "to find out if Melchior and Sir Henry de Clare be not one and the same person. And what then?" What then?—why then I may find out something relative to Fleta's parentage. Nay, but is that ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... overlooking the most important detail in the matter of engaging a governess. In fact, Mr. Bingle very properly said to his wife that as she was expected to devote her time to children who had no pedigree, "it wouldn't be along the line of common sense to exact references from her." Besides, said he, she was so sure to be satisfactory. It was only necessary to look into her honest eyes to feel sure about that. And Mrs. Bingle, who was just then in the throes of adopting Imogene, ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... I now must close, of these Radicals dispose, For I am sad and weary as I view their folly o'er; In their wild Utopian dreaming, and impracticable scheming For a sinful world's redeeming, common sense flies out the door, And the long-drawn dissertations come to—words and nothing more; Only words, and ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... themselves were products of Elementary Schools, the Judge said: "It almost makes one hesitate to think that elementary education is the blessing which we had hoped it was." Of course, all the prigs of the educational world, and they are not few, were aghast at this robust declaration of common sense; and the Judge thought it well to explain (not, I am thankful to say, to explain away) a remark which ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... St. Thomas, a great name in the school he belonged to, that legislation ought to be for the people and by the people, that the cashiering of bad kings may be not only a right but a duty. He insisted that law shall proceed from common sense, not from custom, and shall draw its precepts from an eternal code. The principle of the higher law signifies Revolution. No government founded on positive enactments only can stand before it, and it ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... table was the work of her own unskilled hands. The less said about the viands of that meal, and the dishes they were served in, the better. But we ate them—bless you, yes!—as we would have eaten any witch's banquet set before us. Peg might or might not be a witch—common sense said not; but we knew she was quite capable of turning every one of us out of doors in one of her sudden fierce fits if we offended her; and we had no mind to trust ourselves again to that wild forest where we had fought a losing fight with ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... he had bowed to the rules; he had, however, begun to suspect them by the time he wrote the Rambler, and in the Preface to his edition of Shakespeare suspicion has become conviction. His sturdy common sense and independence of judgment led him to anticipate much of what has been supposed to be the discovery of the romantic school. His Preface has received scant justice. There is no more convincing criticism of ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... the sort. I'm just a girl with a bit of common sense— and grandmother's one that's looked on a long time, and she sees things. The country gentlemen will begin to call on you soon, and then you'll be invited to their houses to meet their wives and daughters, and then you'll be ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Carlyle. The son of a Scotch farmer, he had in his youth a hard student's life of it, and many severe struggles to win the education which is the groundwork of his greatness. His father was a man of keen penetration, who saw into the heart of things, and possessed such strong intellect and sterling common sense that the country people said "he always hit the nail on the head and clinched it." His mother was a good, pious woman, who loved the Bible, and Luther's "Table Talk," and Luther,—walking humbly and sincerely before God, her Heavenly Father. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... held in a grasp not to be relaxed. He knew he must look outside law for justice as well as mercy. It and its ministers were not intentionally cruel. Simply their craft had assumed a scientific shape from which morality and common sense alike were absent. A defendant had a right to evade the penalties of the most manifest guilt by any loopholes and gaps he could discover in the works. It had the right to pursue him to the death, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... an equestrian statue, in a storm of bullets and grape, in the most exposed places—wherever, in fact, duty, requiring him to go, permitted him to remain—when, without trouble and with distinct advantage to his reputation for common sense, he might have been in such security as is possible on a battlefield in the brief intervals of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... was to act A brave man's part, without the statesman's tact, And, taking counsel but of common sense, To strike at cause as well as consequence. Oh, never yet since Roland wound his horn At Roncesvalles, has a blast been blown Far-heard, wide-echoed, startling as thine own, Heard from the van of freedom's hope forlorn It had been safer, doubtless, for ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... view as nothing when opposed to the immediate interest of the state. This is no justification, according to the principles either of morality, or of what we believe to be identical with morality, namely, far-sighted policy. Nevertheless, the common sense of mankind, which in questions of this sort seldom goes far wrong, will always recognize a distinction between crimes which originate in an inordinate zeal for the commonwealth, and crimes which originate in selfish ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... back on the knowledge that comes to us from living, from being, from knowing appearances, from action, and from feeling; on that position in short which Schopenhauer thought so despicable in a human being, i.e., Refuge in the common sense attitude, and practically the giving up of philosophy. The outcome of all the brain work on philosophy, since the time of the Greeks, is that despair has entered into our minds of ever achieving any knowledge of the Real, beneath and beyond Phenomena, of a knowledge ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... thinking men, who saw no reason why the common sense, which served them so well in their business affairs, should be banished from their consideration of matters political, felt themselves in sympathy with his analysis and denunciation of the evils of our parliamentary ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... position to lose her temper because of the unbelieving criticism of a herd-boy. It was a curious instance of the electricity flashed out in the confluence of unlike things—the Celtic faith and the Saxon works. For anger is just the electric flash of the mind, and requires to have its conductor of common sense ready at hand. After a few moments she began again as if she had never stopped and no remarks had been made, only her voice trembled a little ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... are many qualities which we need alike in private citizen and in public man, but three above all—three for the lack of which no brilliancy and no genius can atone—and those three are courage, honesty, and common sense. ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... better judge than I am of the propriety of keeping a well-fed dog among your starving people. That they themselves would do so, I can believe; for they are impulsive and improvident, and more alive to sentiments of kindliness and generosity than to the dictates of common sense and prudence, or of principles of justice. Hero has been used to luxury, both in his lodging and board; but human hearts have to do without their food, and shall not his dog's body? I am fond of him, poor fellow, and would fain have him kindly ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... culminated by the sudden departure of Agnes S. and husband from the house in University place to unknown localities. Their 'little game' was effectually 'played out,' and the landlady at last recovered her health and common sense. But the adventurous birds had feathered their nests, and have only subsided for a while, to resume, in all probability, their 'genteel swindles' in some other city, or perhaps only in another ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... getting ready the materials of his first volume of poems, the copyright of which was purchased by Mr. Cottle for thirty guineas. Coleridge was a student all his life; he was very rarely indeed idle in the common sense of the term; but he was constitutionally indolent, averse from continuous exertion externally directed, and consequently the victim of a procrastinating habit, the occasion of innumerable distresses to himself and of endless ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... weakness of hesitation. To profess an opinion for which we have no sufficient reason is clearly illogical, but when it is necessary to act we must do so on the best evidence available, however slight that may be. Herein lies the importance of common sense, the instincts of a General, the sagacity of a Statesman. Pyrrho, the recognized representative of doubt, was often wise in suspending his judgment, however foolish in hesitating to act, and in apologizing when, after resisting all the arguments of philosophy, an angry dog drove ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... struck her as passing all the bounds of practical common sense. They were so mad that she felt herself compelled to ask for more assurance. "Are you—in love—with—with me?" If the last syllable had been louder it would ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... business? The fact which Lizzy sought to bring to bear upon him, that our Lord would not have done such a thing, was to him no argument at all. He said to himself, with the superior smile of arrogated common sense, that "no mere man since the fall" could be expected to do like Him; that He was divine, and had not to fight for a living; that He set us an example that we might see what sinners we were; that religion was one thing, and a very proper thing, but business was another, and a very proper ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... Margaret rode, a sturdy little Western pony, with nerve and grit and a gentle common sense for humans, was to remain with her in Ashland, a gift from the men of the bunk-house. During the week that followed Archie Forsythe came riding over with a beautiful shining saddle-horse for her use during her ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... estranged her affections, you would call in the aid of the law to tear her children from her arms, and coerce her, through her love for them, to become your slave and victim again. Sir, sir, I am amazed that any man of—I will not say honor or honesty, but common sense and prudence—should dare to think of throwing such a case as that into court," said ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... been at the church about ten years, is a quiet, mildly-flowing, gently-breathing man; has nothing vituperative or declamatory in his nature; works hard and regularly; has an easy, gentle, subdued style of preaching; but knows what common sense means, and can infuse it into his discourses. If he had a little more force he would be able to knock down sinners better. The oracle can't always be worked with tranquillity; delinquents need bruising and smashing sometimes. Father Boardman—an active, unassuming sort of gentleman—has ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... to the patriotism, and the common sense, and the vanity of the nation would have been successful had not the produce of the suckers been both inferior in size and deficient in flavour. The Vraibleusians tasted and shook their heads. The supply, too, was as imperfect as the article; for the Government gardeners ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... two centuries have adopted different ideals as to the logical present and future development of their eclectic system. In short, the situation may be summed up in the query, How "Free" may our Classic become and not offend good taste and common sense? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... years, have been brushed aside by the officials at the Exchequer, although the cost would be only about L25,000 a year, on the very insufficient ground that the Development Grant has been depleted to defray the loss of flotation of stock for the purposes of land purchase. What, in the name of common sense, has land purchase to do with education? What indissoluble relationship is there between the two that the expenditure upon the one should be made dependent upon the requirements of the other? This niggardly ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... condemn. In the name of Matuta and of common sense, is there an imperative necessity that all ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... not wait to acquire the usual capital, using such slender means as I had already got. My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared not ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... lamenting the past. I freely confess that I was wrong in using this money without your knowledge, but I did it from the best of motives. We must put our heads together now to retrieve our losses, and there are many ways in which that may be done. I want your clear common sense to help me in ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... femininity and nobility of soul." In other words, by her possession of some recondite and indescribable magic, sharply separated from the ordinary mental processes of man. The theory is unsound and preposterous. Miss Nightingale accomplished her useful work, not by magic, but by hard common sense. The problem before her was simply one of organization. Many men had tackled it, and all of them had failed stupendously. What she did was to bring her feminine sharpness of wit, her feminine clear-thinking, to bear upon it. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... envious, jealous disposition; weighted with a strong tendency to evil speaking, lying, and slandering; weighted with a grumbling, sour, discontented spirit; weighted with a disposition to vaporing and boasting; weighted with a great want of common sense; weighted with an undue regard to what other people may be thinking or saying of them; weighted with many like things, of which more will be said by-and-by. When that good missionary, Henry Martyn, was in India, he was weighted with an irresistible drowsiness. He ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... whom nature had supplied with a prematurely bald head, a flourishing beard, and a way of appearing ten years older than he really was. To these gifts, priceless to a young medical man, might be added boundless ambition and considerable common sense. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Philosophy, and Hygienics—all put together, gentlemen, have failed to ensure us one day of rational enjoyment or ease; for all these sciences are pure absurdities, unless they are put in the hands of men who are governed by the wholesome dictates of common sense. My wise philosophers, will you come to school ...
— Funny Big Socks - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... defacement (you will forgive me suggesting such a horrible thing)—why, if what you say is true, even in that case my sympathy would have been only a continual fret and annoyance to you. And this—this change, I own, is infinitely harder to bear. It would be an outrage on common sense and on all that we hold seemly and—and sacred in life, even in some trumpery story. You do, you must see ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... that general ignorance regarding the "strength of materials" in which the scientific world has been too strangely suffered to lie, in this the world's most mechanical age; so that what ought to be questions of strict calculation are subjected to the guessings of a mere common sense, far from adequate, in many cases, to their proper resolution. "I once raised a vessel," said Mr. Bremner,—"a large collier, chock-full of coal,—which an English projector had actually engaged to raise with huge bags of India rubber, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... was over, grace was chanted and then the Zemiroth was sung—songs summing up in light and jingling metre the very essence of holy joyousness—neither riotous nor ascetic—the note of spiritualized common sense which has been the key-note of historical Judaism. For to feel "the delight of Sabbath" is a duty and to take three meals thereon a religions obligation—the sanctification of the sensuous by a creed to which everything is holy. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... disposition of the estate in his own will. Realising the present hopelessness of an attempt to secure legislation of this character, he suggested that first of all it would be imperative to prepare the way to such an end by creating in the minds of all the peoples of the world a state of common sense that could successfully combat and overcome love, sentimentality and cowardice! For these three, he pointed out, were the common enemy of reason. "And in compensation for the discharge of such duties as may come under the requirements of this trusteeship, the aforesaid Braden Lanier ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... either the friendship existing between the two crowns, or the desire of the two nations to remain at peace. He entertained the sincere hope that if attempts were made to stir up the resentments and passions of another epoch, they would break to pieces on common sense. Prince Albert responded, and expressed the most friendly sentiments on behalf of the queen. He said she was happy at having an opportunity, by her presence at Cherbourg, of joining and endeavoring to strengthen ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... of disease. A great deal of social information has been collected merely for the purpose of determining what to do in a given case. Facts have not been collected to check social theories. Social problems have been defined in terms of common sense, and facts have been collected, for the most part, to support this or that doctrine, not to test it. In very few instances have investigations been made, disinterestedly, to determine the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... anything. Irish Nationalists have two leading ideas—to get as much out of England as possible, and to damage her as much as possible by way of repayment. Mr. Gladstone wants to put England's head on the block, to hand an axe to her sworn enemy, and to say, 'I'm sure you won't chop.' People who have common sense stand amazed, dumbfounded at so ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... "Trust your common sense—that is, if you happen to have any; and, for goodness' sake, don't snivel any more. Wipe your eyes and take it sporting. And, wait a moment. If you want a bit of really good, sound advice, don't mention ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... professors take a hand at all-fours or poker on weekdays, now and then, and read the secular columns of the 'Boston Recorder' on Sundays?" I was demoralized for the moment, it is plain; but now that I have recovered from the shock, I must say that the fact mentioned seems to show a great advance in common sense from the ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... It is his common sense, and not the religious yearnings of his soul, that makes him write in the poem of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... reproach of every kind—often more than verbal affronts—stupid, brutal violence, sometimes to the hazard of health, or limbs, or life. Brethren, do you envy us this honour? What, I pray you, would buy you to be a field-preacher? Or what, think you, could induce any man of common sense to continue therein one year, unless he had a full conviction in himself that it was the will of God concerning ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... are from anything like a scientific, not to say common sense basis for insurance expenses, we have but to examine the following list, which gives the ratios between the expenditures for general expenses in 1889, and those for the extension of the business. For every $100 used in a general way, the different companies spend for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... quite absurd," he said, "for any one of common sense to argue that a motorist can, could, or should pull up every moment for the sake of a few stray animals, or even people, when they don't seem to know or care where they are going. Now think of that child to-day! What an absolute little idiot! Gathering wild thyme and holding it out ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... coming to close grips with life; to learn what things and people really are, the good and the bad of them together; to have to weigh and measure cant and sentimentality and Christian charity—which last is a fearsome thing—in the balance with truth and common sense and human kindness. It is an ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... not meet many persons on their way, and these few were of poorer class, early commencing their morning toils. Inquiring glances were cast at the singular cortege, but at that time of bondage and peril, a common sense of misery and danger taught ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... can unconditionally return. There is no wrong anywhere: it is all "right." The people are first made criminals, in order to exculpate the States, and then the innocence of the States is used to exculpate the people. When we see such outrages on common sense gravely perpetrated by so eminent a lawyer as the one who drew up the committee's Report, one is almost inclined to define minds as of two kinds, the legal mind and the human mind, and to doubt if there is any possible connection ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... scholars is not within my province. But if Dr. O'Grady understands "the Brugh" to be synonymous with Sidh an Bhrogha (as perhaps he does not), the adoption of his reading would lead to an inference which is opposed to common sense.] ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... isn't Emerson," he answered. "It's just common sense, only it sounds to you like drivel. I'm going now,—unless you want to hear some more about the plots I've been getting into. But I want to say this. I ask you to remember that you're my father, and that—I'm fond of you. And that, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... way the element of common sense is the basework of an expert's success in the business. He cannot depend upon anything suggesting intuition. Where two signatures or two specimens of writing are in question and one exhibit is a forgery and the other is genuine, or where ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... proved, by his conduct on the occasion, what he thought of the business: and, without his knowledge of naval usage, a man at all conversant in legal constructions, or even the plainest principles of common sense, must see, if he is not blinded by prejudice, that the general rule above alluded to could never be intended to overthrow any positive orders left by a superior officer, at the will of the inferior. If, indeed, a case of necessity should arise, the latter would have ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... common sense deserved a reward. Anyway it got one, and with a cheerful good night, I set my car going at a pace which made me hope that any other constable I chanced to meet would prove as intelligent as he from whom I had just ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... every human mind, imbued with the commonest of common sense, and the commonest of common humanity; to all dispassionate, reasoning creatures, of any shade of opinion; and ask, with these revolting evidences of the state of society which exists in and about the slave districts ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... sometimes seems akin to inspiration, divined. She too was something of a dreamer, with an ear for the voices of Nature and a mind open to the influences of its beauty, but with a goodly ballast of strong common sense. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... have you now?" he asked laughing. "What a genius you have for them! Look here, Rose, it's common sense; you want a change, you can let the house up to Easter. Besides, you know what it would do for your ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... disliked taking any one into his confidence on the subject of his father's want of ready money. He had obtained a copy of his grandfather's will at Doctors' Commons, and he imagined that all the contingencies involved in it would be patent to the light of nature and common sense. He was a little mistaken in this, but not the less resolved that money in some way he would have in order to fulfil his promise to his father, and for the ulterior purpose of giving the squire some daily interest to distract his thoughts from the regrets and cares that were ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Study has assumed that the fundamental condition of what we call "Americanization" is the participation of the immigrant in the life of the community in which he lives. The point here emphasized is that patriotism, loyalty, and common sense are neither created nor transmitted by purely intellectual processes. Men must live and work and fight together in order to create that community of interest and sentiment which will enable them to meet the crises of their common life with a ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Lewis has sound common sense, and is not going to be spoiled. The instant he found himself possessed of money, he forgot himself in a plan to make his old father comfortable, who is wretchedly poor and lives down in Maryland. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... blasphemous—whatever that meant. As soon as religious services ceased to be compulsory for me, I only attended them as a concession to others. The prime object of the prayers and lessons did not appear to be that they might be understood. So far as I could see, common sense and plain natural feelings were at a discount. A long heritage of an eager, restless spirit left me uninterested in "homilies," and aided by the "dim religious light," I was enabled to sleep through both long prayers and sermons. Justice forces me to add that ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... arm through mine. "If you are quite through with your play acting, gentlemen, we will back to reason and common sense again. Mr. Montagu may not be precisely a pronounced Jack, but then he doesn't give a pinch of snuff for the Whigs either. I think we shall ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... divided the town into two camps. The pro-Bruce faction, composed largely of men folk, claimed for their protege a splendid common sense in selection of his gifts: but the women and girls, who made up the other group, envied Deane not only the gifts Terry gave her, but also—and more so—the rarefied romantic spirit of the youth who ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... "it isn't being disagreeable to have common sense. It's all the more necessary for me not to abnegate that, for the ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... Church." This, like the first charge, was a revival of an old personal grievance within the church, rehabilitated to give cumulative force to the political complaints. The accusation is summarily disposed of; the accused condemning the sentiment "as grossly Tyrannical, inconsistent with common sense and repugnant to good order"; and denying that he ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... Duke will be a great check upon you. The Duke is now a little too old a mouser to enjoy Tory tricks. He has unfortunately a large amount of common sense; and how fatal must that quality be to the genius of the Wharncliffes, the Goulburns, and the Stanleys! Besides, the Duke has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... governments in the various rural localities. It indeed seems strange, that such a simple matter as providing the means of making roads and bridges by local assessment could not have been conceded to the people, who, if we suppose them to be gifted with common sense, are much more capable of understanding and managing their own parish business, than any government, however well ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... with other classes. Mrs. de Laney entertained a horror of vulgarity. So deep-rooted was this horror that a remote taint of it was sufficient to thrust forever outside the pale of her approbation any unfortunate who exhibited it. She preferred stupidity to common sense, when the former was allied with good form, and the latter only with plain kindliness. This was partly instinct and partly the result of cultivation. She would shrink, with uncontrollable disgust, from any of the lower classes with ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... was for noblemen of high birth to live on means provided by their wives' fortunes, and how uncommon it was that men born to high titles should consent to serve as clerks in a public office. But his common sense had no effect upon his sister, who ended the conversation by exacting from him a renewed assurance of secrecy. "I won't say a word till he comes," said Hampstead; "but you may be sure that a story like that will be all over ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... like all these people very well in their proper places ; but to see such a set of poor beings living like persons of quality,—'tis preposterous! common sense, madam, common sense is against that kind of thing. As to Garrick, he was a very good mimic, an entertaining fellow enough, and all that kind of thing - but for an actor to live like a person ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... felt so thoroughly ashamed of himself. He was breaking down before his son, to whom he knew he ought to be setting an example of fortitude and common sense. He had forgotten the very names of such qualities; the mere thought of Hope, whenever it crossed his mind, mocked him maddeningly, and he hated the little City for the name he had given it. Hope was his enemy since she had left ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... better of its kind than the first portion of "Twice Lost".... The caustic humor and strong common sense which mark the sketches of character in this book, betray a keenness of observation and aptitude for producing a telling likeness with a few strokes, which need only a wider cultivation to secure a more complete success than has been attained in ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... to spring up, and the hands of his guards tightened, swift and strong, even before his muscles had fully tightened. Bart's head dropped. Cold common sense doused over his brave thoughts. He was uncountable millions of light-years from his own people. He was absolutely alone. Bravery would mean nothing; submission would mean nothing. Would he be more of a man, somehow, if he let his ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... to coerce words to do his bidding, he threw down his pen and looked into the future. He could see nothing ahead of him but bitterness and cause for alarm, and, seeking consolation, he was forced to admit that only religion could heal, but religion demanded in return so arrant a desertion of common sense, so pusillanimous a willingness to be astonished at nothing, that he threw up his ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... nice of you, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "But I want to ask you again: what kind of detective are you? Haven't you got any common sense at all?" ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett |
