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

—  George Will

Column, May 9, 1996, "FDR's memorial hides character" http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-05-09/news/1996130096_1_memorial-felix-frankfurter-cigarette-holder at baltimoresun.com
1990s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This is an age in which one cannot find common sense without a search warrant." by George Will?
George Will photo
George Will 28
American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author 1941

Related quotes

Matthew Arnold photo

“The free-thinking of one age is the common sense of the next.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

God and the Bible (1875)

Peter Ustinov photo

“Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

BBC obituary (2004)

Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
P.G. Wodehouse photo

“This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if he do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Something New

Source: Something New

Albert Einstein photo

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Nicholas Sparks photo

“Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face - I know it's an impossibility, but I cannot help myself.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo

“The Age of Empty Freedom … does not know that man must first through labour, industry, and art, learn how to know; but it has a certain fixed standard for all conceptions, and an established Common Sense of Mankind always ready and at hand, innate within itself and there present without trouble on its part;—and those conceptions and this Common Sense are to it the measure of the efficient and the real. It has this great advantage over the Age of Science, that it knows all things without having learned anything; and can pass judgment upon whatever comes before it at once and without hesitation,—without needing any preliminary evidence:—'That which I do not immediately comprehend by the conceptions which dwell within me, is nothing,'—says Empty Freedom.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 20

Slavoj Žižek photo

“Daly: In a sense, would you say that the age of biogenetics/cyberspace is the age of philosophy?
Žižek: Yes, and the age of philosophy in the sense again that we are confronted more and more often with philosophical problems at an everyday level. It is not that you withdraw from daily life into a world of philosophical contemplation. On the contrary, you cannot find your way around daily life itself without answering certain philosophical questions. It is a unique time when everyone is, in a way, forced to be some kind of philosopher.”

Slavoj Žižek (1949) Slovene philosopher

Conversations with Žižek by Slavoj Žižek and Glyn Daly (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), p. 54

“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)

Pierre-Simon Laplace photo

“"One sees, from this Essay, that the theory of probabilities is basically just common sense reduced to calculus; it makes one appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct, often without being able to account for it."”

Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827) French mathematician and astronomer

"On voit, par cet Essai, que la théorie des probabilités n'est, au fond, que le bon sens réduit au calcul; elle fait apprécier avec exactitude ce que les esprits justes sentent par une sorte d'instinct, sans qu'ils puissent souvent s'en rendre compte."
From the Introduction to Théorie Analytique des Probabilités http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-88764, second and later editions; also published separately as Essai philosophique sur les Probabilités (1814). Œuvres complètes de Laplace, tome VII, p. cliii, Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1878-1912.
Also reported as: "The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for which ofttimes they are unable to account."
Or as: "Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation."

Related topics