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

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Harriet Beecher Stowe 87

Abolitionist, author 1811–1896

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

“It was a common saying of Myson that men ought not to investigate things from words, but words from things; for that things are not made for the sake of words, but words for things.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Myson, 3.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 2: Socrates, his predecessors and followers

“The Common Sense, is that which judges of things offered to it by the other senses. The ancient speculators have concluded that that part of man which constitutes his judgment is caused by a central organ to which the other five senses refer everything by means of impressibility; and to this centre they have given the name Common Sense. And they say that this Sense is situated in the centre of the head between Sensation and Memory. And this name of Common Sense is given to it solely because it is the common judge of all the other five senses i. e. Seeing, Hearing, Touch, Taste and Smell. This Common Sense is acted upon by means of Sensation which is placed as a medium between it and the senses. Sensation is acted upon by means of the images of things presented to it by the external instruments, that is to say the senses which are the medium between external things and Sensation. In the same way the senses are acted upon by objects. Surrounding things transmit their images to the senses and the senses transfer them to the Sensation. Sensation sends them to the Common Sense, and by it they are stamped upon the memory and are there more or less retained according to the importance or force of the impression.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIV Anatomy, Zoology and Physiology

“Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

As quoted in Created for Excellence : 12 keys to Godly Success (1996) by Kevin Baerg, p. 25

“Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humour are without judgement and should be trusted with nothing.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Essays and reviews, Clive James On Television (1991)

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

Chapman Cohen (1868–1954) British atheist and secularist writer and lecturer

Context: Gods are fragile things, they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense. They thrive on servility and shrink before independence. They feed upon worship as kings do upon flattery. That is why the cry of gods at all times is "Worship us or we perish."

Pamphlet The Devil, quoted in Gordon Stein An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism (Prometheus Books, 1980), p. 258.

“I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them … that's all the powers of the President amount to.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Quoted by Richard Neustadt in Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership http://books.google.com/books?id=-rxEAAAAIAAJ&q="I+sit+here+all+day+trying+to+persuade+people+to+do+the+things+they+ought+to+have+sense+enough+to+do+without+my+persuading+them"+"that's+all+the+powers+of+the+President+amount+to" (1964)

“The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I wish for green things; for this is the condition of the diseased eye. And the healthy hearing and smelling ought to be ready to perceive all that can be heard and smelled. And the healthy stomach ought to be”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

X, 35
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book X
Context: The healthy eye ought to see all visible things and not to say, I wish for green things; for this is the condition of the diseased eye. And the healthy hearing and smelling ought to be ready to perceive all that can be heard and smelled. And the healthy stomach ought to be with respect to all food just as the mill with respect to all things which it is formed to grind. And accordingly the healthy understanding ought to be prepared for everything which happens; but that which says, Let my dear children live, and let all men praise whatever I may do, is an eye which seeks for green things, or teeth which seek for soft things.

“God, grant us men to see in a small thing principles which are common things both small and great.”
Deus, dona hominibus videre in parvo communes notitias rerum parvarum atque magnarum.

Aurelius Augustinus book Confessions

Deus, dona hominibus videre in parvo communes notitias rerum parvarum atque magnarum.
http://books.google.com/books?id=lM5PQRHMNFwC&q=%22Deus+dona+hominibus+videre+in+parvo+communes+notitias+rerum+parvarum+atque+magnarum%22&pg=PR19#v=onepage
XI, 23
Confessions (c. 397)

“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 H. Land (1909–1991) American scientist and inventor

Statement to Polaroid Corporation employes (25 June 1958), as quoted in Insisting on the Impossible : The Life of Edwin Land (1998) by Victor K. McElheny, p. 189

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

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Harriet Beecher Stowe 87

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