Quotes about common
page 27

“The common people are nothing more than the raw material of which a People is made.”

Dr. Stockmann, Act IV
An Enemy of the People (1882)

“We did not suspend our democracy in our darkest hours why are we suspending it now? the fawning over Thatcher had gone too far. We have had enough of this, It has gone on too long and it has gone too far. This put the tin hat on it the idea that we should suspend a vital part of our democratic process for a party political and private funeral, Mr Churchill didn’t ask for Parliament to be silenced, for confrontations across the House to be forbidden. When our soldiers were being laid waste in the Norway debate, the House of Commons perhaps rose to its finest 20th Century moment. Nobody said: ‘Our armed forces have suffered a disaster, the House of Commons cannot meet, the clash of ideas cannot be heard, we must muffle the drums and silence ourselves The so-called Beast of Bolsover said the argument was about class and that it was "one rule for those at the top and another for those at the bottom. We are here talking about the thing that we sometimes suggest has gone away class, That's what it is, it's about class. It's about the fact that people out there have to live their lives in a different way and there's one rule for those at the top and there's another for those at the bottom. It's never changed, I wish it had, but it hasn't. So when I heard about the chain of events it seemed to grow like topseed - first of all there was going to be some sort of ceremonial funeral, and then the next thing you (Mr Speaker) tell us that the chimes of Big Ben are going to stop and then we hear about the fact that we are going to abandon Prime Minister's question time, I mean, what's it all about? That's why the people out there are angry, a lot of them.”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

The Mirror http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-thatcher-fawning-gone-far-1836314 George Galloway blasts cancellation of PMQs for Margret Thatchers funeral 16 April, 2013

People, Way, Democracy, Idea

“Once a nation acknowledges publicly that it is corrupt, … there is a weakening. A listlessness, a nihilism, where personal appetites and longings for celebrity outweigh what was once understood as common virtue.”

John Kass (1956) American journalist

"Hillary Clinton disqualifies herself," Chicago Tribune, (7 July 2016) http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-hillary-clinton-emails-comey-kass-0708-20160707-column.html

Personality

“Evolution’s logical, unlike religion. Even the Church will agree with that. You have to take religion on faith and you can’t test it by common sense.”

Lester del Rey (1915–1993) Novelist, short story writer, editor

Source: The Eleventh Commandment (1962), Chapter 8 (p. 72)

Faith, Religion, Sense

“All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable. The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive — you are leaking.”

Fran Lebowitz book Metropolitan Life

"Manners" (p. 6).
Metropolitan Life (1978)

God, Children, Beauty, Error

“The models of mental illness to be discussed in this chapter come from different philosophical traditions. They do not conform to one conceptual pattern and do not constitute one particular theory. They have in common an attitude towards the mental patient and his problems.”

Thaddus E. Weckowicz (1919–2000) Canadian psychologist

Source: Models of Mental Illness (1984), p. 245-246 ( chapter online http://positivedisintegration.com/Weckowicz1984.pdf)

Problem

“Let me first explain, then, what I mean by moral and moral science. A moral or ethical proposition, is a statement about a rank order of preference among alternatives, which is intended to apply to more than one person. A preference which applies to one person only is a taste. Statements of this kind are often called "value judgments." If someone says, "I prefer A to B," this is a personal value judgment, or a taste. If he says, "A is better than B," there is an implication that he expects other people to prefer A to B also, as well as himself. A moral proposition then is a "common value".”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1960s, Economics As A Moral Science, 1969, p. 1

People, Science, Personality

“No man can control Wall Street. Wall Street is like the ocean. No man can govern it. It is too vast. Wall Street is full of eddies and currents. The thing to do is to watch them, to exercise a little common sense, and … to come out on top.”

Jay Gould (1836–1892) American businessman

Interview with the New York Herald
Jay Gould : A Character Sketch (1893)

Exercises, Sense

“It is no ready made article; it has grown through the centuries as native to our country and people as the oak, ash, or thorn. It has given her people freedom and taught them the difference between freedom and licence. That is the Constitution that is threatened to-day, not quite openly yet, by the Socialist Party in their conference, tendenciously by sketching a course of action which if it takes place means the destruction of the Constitution. You may dispute that as much as you like, but in effect taking away the executive power of the House of Commons is the way every tyranny starts. It is proletarian Hitlerism and nothing else, and it can be nothing else. I want you to realize it in time.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Birmingham (6 October 1933), quoted in The Times (7 October 1933), p. 14.
1933

People, Way, Freedom, Time

“The Arts, especially film, transcend all cultural barriers, hopefully offering an avenue where all people can find a common place to meet, understand each other, and nurture a safe world for all our children to grow strong within.”

Carson Grant (1950) American actor

Kaminsky, Denise, Aug 2006, "Carson Grant: Actor/Artist- A Lifetime of Art", Denise's Interviews and Media News, p. 1
About his thought on the Arts

Children, People, World, Art

“Plausible as the idea of the United States of Europe as a peace arrangement may seem to some at first glance, it has on closer examination not the least thing in common with the method of thought and the standpoint of social democracy... At the present stage of development of the world market and of world economy, the conception of Europe as an isolated economic unit is a sterile concoction of the brain. Europe no more forms a special unit within world economy than does Asia or America.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Peace Utopias (1911)

World, Peace, Democracy, Idea

“There is something is common between literary, and above all theatrical, reputations and the fortunes which used of old to be made in the West Indies. In the early days it was almost sufficient to reach those islands to return with incalculable riches; but the very vastness of the fortunes thus obtained was prejudicial to those of the following generation, since the exhausted earth could yield no more.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Il en est un peu des réputations littéraires, et surtout des réputations de théâtre, comme des fortunes qu'on faisait autrefois dans les Iles. Il suffisait presque autrefois d'y passer, pour parvenir à une grande richesse, mais ces grandes fortunes mêmes ont nui à celles de la génération suivante: les terres épuisées n'ont plus rendu si abondamment.
Maximes et Pensées (Van Bever, Paris :1923), #442
Maxims and Considerations, #442

“Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software packages have become popular means for both large and medium-sized organizations to overcome the limitations of fragmented and incompatible legacy systems. ERP systems are designed as integrated sets of software modules linked to a common database, handling basic corporate functions such as finance, human resources, materials management, sales, and distribution. Most ERP packages also provide multiple language and currency capabilities, enabling integration of global operations. The popularity of ERP is documented in a study that showed that nearly 19 percent of organizations across all industry sectors have installed ERP software, with the manufacturing sector leading the trend. The study also showed that ERP's popularity continues to rise, with 34 percent of the surveyed organizations investigating, piloting, or implementing ERP packages. Davenport characterized ERP as "the most important development in the corporate use of information technology in the 1990s"”

Jeanne W. Ross (1958) American computer scientist

Source: Learning to implement enterprise systems (2002), p. 18

Study

“We seek the freedom to compete without the undue burden of high taxes and bureaucratic regulations, which make us less competitive. We seek opportunities to build better communities, better businesses, and better lives for ourselves, our children, and our children's children. And most of all, we cherish both the freedom and opportunity to decide our future. And today, we celebrate that freedom and opportunity. What I envision for Maryland is not just an economic and fiscal recovery, but a rebirth of our spirit, and a renewed commitment to our common purpose. … One hundred years from now, I want Marylanders to say, "This was when Maryland's renaissance began."”

Larry Hogan (1956) American politician

… Let us appeal to the better angels of our nature so that we can achieve the great and shining promise of Maryland. " Inaugural Address http://governor.maryland.gov/2015/01/21/inaugural-address-governor-larry-hogan/" (21 January 2015)

Children, Angels, Communication, Business

“Contingency theories dominate scholarly studies of organization behavior, design, performance, planning and management strategy. While they vary widely in subject matter, they have the common proposition that an organizational outcome is the consequency of a "fit" or match between two or more factors. "Fit" is the key concept in this proposition, and the core problem common to contingency theories is not defining this term clearly. This paper examines three ways to define and test this concept of fit: Selection, Interaction, and Systems approaches. A critical discussion of these three approaches will clarify much of the current confusion in the literature on contingency theories, and suggest ways that future theorizing and research can become more systematic and constructive.”

Andrew H. Van de Ven (1945) American business theorist

Andrew H. Van de Ven and Robert Drazin (1984). The Concept of Fit in Contingency Theory http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA152603. No. SMRC-DP-19). Minneapolis: Minnesota University Minneapolis Strategic Management Research Center.

Way, Behavior, Literature, Problem

“Ah, self-interest at last. Despite all of our differences, of race and time and distance, we achieve commonality. I understand self-interest.”

Lawrence M. Schoen (1959) American writer and klingonist

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 18, “One-Sided Conversation” (p. 176)

Understanding, Time

“Science and art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apartments of the opulent; but these are all poor and worthless compared with the common light which the sun sends into all our windows, which he pours freely, impartially over hill and valley, which kindles daily the eastern and western sky; and so the common lights of reason, and conscience, and love, are of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments which give celebrity to a few.”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Self-Culture (1838)

Love, Art, Light, Science

“I can imagine nothing except being a footman or common soldier as more degrading than being either a barber or a tailor.”

Francis Place (1771–1854) English social reformer

Source: The Autobiography of Francis Place: 1771-1854, 1972, p. 216

Imagination

“No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance. And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil Servants, no longer servants and no longer civil. And where would the ordinary simple folk—the common people, as they like to call them in America—where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip?”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (4 June 1945) for the 1945 general election, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Never Despair': Winston S. Churchill, 1945–1965 (London: Heinemann, 1988), p. 32
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Life, People, Country

“A good poem is a tautology. It expands one word by adding a number which clarify it, thus making a new word which has never before been spoken. The seed-word is always so ordinary that hardly anyone perceives it. Classical odes grow from and or because, romantic lyrics from but or if. Immature verses expand a personal pronoun ad nauseam, the greatest works bring glory to a common verb.”

Alasdair Gray (1934–2019) Scottish writer and artist

"Prometheus", pp. 208-9.
Unlikely Stories, Mostly (1983)

Personality

“Growing old: the most common mitochondrial disease of all?”

Anita Harding (1952–1995) neurologist

Title of article published in Natural Genetics (1992), 2:251-2; cited in Stephen Waxman (2010) Molecular Neurology. p. 536

Disease

“To be effective men must act together, and to act together they must have a common understanding and a common object.”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter III, The Movement Of Theory, p. 30.

Men, Understanding

“Mass phenomena to which the theory of probability does not apply are, of course, of common occurrence.”

Richard von Mises (1883–1953) Austrian physicist and mathematician

Fifth Lecture, Applications in Statistics and the Theory of Errors, p. 141
Probability, Statistics And Truth - Second Revised English Edition - (1957)

“Organization is the form of every human association for the attainment of a common purpose.”

James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman

Source: The Principles of Organization, 1947, p. 10

“This is not to deny for one moment either the enormous cultural changes undergone by the Greeks despite a surviving sense of common ethnicity or the cultural influence of surrounding peoples and civilizations over two thousand years. At the same time in terms of script and language, certain values, a particular environment and its nostalgia, continuous social interactions, and a sense of religious and cultural difference, even exclusion, a sense of Greek identity and common sentiments of ethnicity can be said to have persisted beneath the many social and political changes of the last two thousand years”

Anthony D. Smith (1939–2016) British academic

Source: National Identity (1991), p. 31: About Ethnic Change, Dissolution and Survival

People, Sense, Nostalgia, Change

“He fell as other thousands do,
Trampled down where they fall,
While on a single name is heap'd
The glory gain'd by all.
Yet even he whose common grave
Lies in the open fields,
Died not without a thought of all
The joy that glory yields.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Record
The Troubadour (1825)

Joy

“He says to the Sovereign: "I no longer am leader of the majority party in the House of Commons; but I am carrying on as your Prime Minister." Now I don't think anyone can say that—at least without inflicting damage on the constitution… [it is] tantamount to treating the monarch herself with disrespect and denying the very principle on which our parliamentary democracy is founded.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

On John Major's decision to resign as party leader in order to contest a leadership election (The Daily Mail, 27 June, 1995).
1990s

Democracy, Thinking, Housing

“In Sudan, Bin Laden decided to acquire and, when possible, use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons against Islam's enemies. Bin Laden's first moves in this direction were made in cooperation with NIF [Sudan's National Islamic Front], Iraq's intelligence service and Iraqi CBRN scientists and technicians. He made contact with Baghdad with its intelligence officers in Sudan and by a [Hassan] Turabi-brokered June-1994 visit by Iraq's then-intelligence chief Faruq al-Hijazi; according to Milan's Corriere della Sera, Saddam, in 1994, made Hijazi responsible for "nurturing Iraq's ties to [Islamic] fundamentalist warriors. Turabi had plans to formulate a "common strategy" with bin Laden and Iraq for subverting pro-U. S. Arab regimes, but the meeting was a get-acquainted session where Hijazi and bin Laden developed a good rapport that would "flourish" in the late 1990s.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

Through Our Enemies Eyes (p. 124)
2000s

Intelligence

“Pure rationality and limited rationality share a common perspective, seeing decisions as based on evaluation of alternatives in terms of their consequences for preferences. This logic of consequences can be contrasted with a logic of appropriateness by which actions are matched to situations by means of rules organized into identities.”

James G. March (1928–2018) American sociologist

James G. March (1994), A Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen, p. 57

Decision

“Multiple discoveries are in fact very common in science and for much the same reason. Developments in related fields with different motivation help one to understand a difficult problem better. Since these developments are public knowledge, many scholars can take advantage of them. It is pleasant to the ego to be first or among the first with a new discovery. However, in this case at least, the evidence is clear that the development of general equilibrium theory would have gone on quite as it did without me.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

Arrow (1984) "November 1984 lecture at Trinity University". Lecture presented November 5, 1984.
1970s-1980s

Motivation, Understanding, Knowledge, Problem

“Europe is not really even a geographic entity; it is separated from Asia only at one point, the Bosphorus, by a small stretch of water. North of that there is continuity over the russians steppes, a complete terrestrial flow. I suggest that is also true of culture, and indeed of social organization. Indeed Europe has never been purely isolated, purely Christian. Instead of Christian Europe, one has to see the continent as penetrated by the three world religions that originated in the Near East and which indeed had a common mythology or sacred text; in order of arrival these were Judaism, Christianity and Islam. (…) All have equal entitlements to be present, and in this general ('objective') sense none can be considered only as the Other; they are part of Europe, part of our heritage.”

Jack Goody (1919–2015) British anthropologist

Jack Goody, Islam in Europe, Polity, 2004, p.14

World, Religion, Sense, Water

“Now the Disney Corporation could do this because that culture lived in a commons, an intellectual commons, a cultural commons, where people could freely take and build. It was a lawyer-free zone.
It was culture, which you didn't need the permission of someone else to take and build upon. That was the character of creativity at the birth of the last century. It was built upon a constitutional requirement that protection be for limited times, and it was originally limited. Fourteen years, if the author lived, then 28, then in 1831 it went to 42, then in 1909 it went to 56, and then magically, starting in 1962, look — no hands, the term expands.
Eleven times in the last 40 years it has been extended for existing works — not just for new works that are going to be created, but existing works. The most recent is the Sonny Bono copyright term extension act.”

Lawrence Lessig (1961) American academic, political activist.

OSCON 2002

People, Birth, Time

“Family occasions have always given Janice some pain, assembling like a grim jury these people to whom we owe something, first our parents and elders and then our children and their children. One of the things she and Harry secretly had in common, beneath all their troubles, was dislike of all that, these expected ceremonies.”

John Updike book Rabbit Remembered

Rabbit Remembered (2000)

Pain, Children, People, Family

“Hope will come with the return of the language of class conflict and rebellion, language that has been purged from the lexicon of the liberal class. This does not mean we have to agree with Karl Marx, who advocated violence and whose worship of the state as a utopian mechanism led to another form of working class enslavement, but we have to learn again to speak in the vocabulary Marx employed. We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

Source: The Death of the Liberal Class (2010), p. 17

Hope, Learning

“It's common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq. That's well known. We continue to be concerned about the Iranians taking al-Qaeda into Iran and training them and sending them back…. I am sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda, not al-Qaeda, I am sorry.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

During an official visit in Amman, Jordon, making a statement and then being corrected by Senator Joe Lieberman http://web.archive.org/web/20080324115205/http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gtqD_x9yYIuq_7S2dimSjMV5qRmg (18 March 2008) 2000s, 2008

Knowledge, Training

“No chord in populism reverberates more strongly than the notion that the robust common sense of an unstained outsider is the best medicine for an ailing polity. Caligula doubtless got big cheers from the plebs when he installed his horse as proconsul.”

Alexander Cockburn (1941–2012) Leftist journalist and writer

"Obama's Speech; McCain's Palinomy," http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08302008.html CounterPunch (August 30 -31, 2008).

Sense, Horse

“Science is not an impersonal construction. It is no less, and no more, personal than any other form of communicated thought. …Science searches the common experience of people; and it is made by people, and it has their style. …The style of Newton's work, as much as the content, dominated science for two centuries… The science of an age, like its art or its music, has style… But it has content and structure too, larger than the work of any one man…”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Scientific Revolution and the Machine"
The Common Sense of Science (1951)

People, Age, Art, Music

“The people change, the common denominator is you.”

Phil McGraw (1950) American television host, psychologist, actor and film producer

Twitter post https://twitter.com/drphil/status/449952194788208641, 29 Mars 2014

People, Change

“In a speech which he made in the House of Commons in 1804 the Lord Advocate, Charles Hope, claimed to be not only public prosecutor, coroner's jury, and grand jury, which he undoubtedly was, but also Home Secretary, Privy Council, and Lord-Lieutenant! … The anomalous combination of legal and administrative duties in the person of the Lord Advocate came to an end on the passing, in 1885, of the Secretary for Scotland Act which transferred to the Secretary, now the Secretary of State, for Scotland, most of the responsibility for the administration of Scottish affairs.”

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan (1873–1952) British judge

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), At the Scottish bar, p. 86

Hope, Home, Housing, Personality

“The denizens of Citizens Service Houses are not, as a rule, gifted with a lot of common sense, but they often make up for that by being extremely argumentative and vindictive.”

Robert Silverberg (1935) American speculative fiction writer and editor

Source: Short fiction, Hot Times in Magma City (1995), p. 56

Sense, Housing

“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

Age, Art, Sense, Freedom

“Scientists are supposed to live in ivory towers. Their darkrooms and their vibration-proof benches are supposed to isolate their activities from the disturbances of common life. What they tell us is supposed to be for the ages, not for the next election. But the reality may be otherwise.”

Simon LeVay (1943) American neuroscientist

Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality, 1996, Cambridge: MIT Press. p. 9

Life, Age, Reality

“Communism knows no monster. … Should abuse occur, the perpetrator would not be ostracized by his fellow human beings. They would not reject the social violator in order to reassure themselves of their humanity by comparing themselves to a non-human human, to a monster. They would be able to recognize what they have in common with him, and to realize that they could have done what he did. And this, we believe, is a much better way of reducing abuse to its lowest possible minimum than any search for normality.”

Gilles Dauvé (1947) French writer

"Moral Disorder & Sexual Identity," July 28, 2009 https://libcom.org/library/moral-disorder-gilles-dauv%C3%A9

Way, Search, Communication

“Several commentators have reflected on the fact that this may be one of the great political victories of all time. In terms of votes that may be true, but in terms of what a victory really is, a huge landslide margin means nothing at all unless it is a victory for America. It will be a victory for America only if, in these next four years, we, all of us, can work together to achieve our common great goals of peace at home and peace for all nations in the world, and for that new progress and prosperity which all Americans deserve.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

1970s, Remarks on Being Reelected (1972)

World, Peace, Home, Time

“Paul Ryan combines a profound sense of responsibility for what we owe the next generation with an unbounded optimism in America's future and an understanding of all the wonderful things the American people can do. Paul also combines firm principles with a practical concern for getting things done. He has never been content to simply curse the darkness; he would rather light candles. And throughout his legislative career he's shown the ability to work with members of both parties to find common ground on some of the hardest issues confronting the American people.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-08-11
http://mittromneycentral.com/2012/08/11/video-and-transcript-romney-making-his-vp-announcement/
Video and Transcript: Romney Making His VP Announcement
Mitt Romney Central
2012

People, Optimism, Understanding, Sense

“Market exchange requires a combination of both state and customary institutions. For any developed system of commodity exchange there must be a legal system inscribing and protecting rights to individual or corporate property. There must be a body of contract law with criteria for distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary transfers of goods and services, and courts to adjudicate in such matters. However, the evolution of law is not simply a matter of legislative construction; a great deal of law grows out of custom and precedent. Property and contract law are not exceptions. Consequently, the existence of property and exchange is tied up with a number of legal and other institutions, e. g. government, political system, and common societal values.”

Geoffrey Hodgson (1946) British economist

Source: Economics and Institutions, 1988, p. 150

Law

“Liberalism means an intelligent effort to keep the political and economic development of our nation abreast of the responsibilities that come from an atomic age. It means an extension of the use of our resources for the common good, the solving of the problem of maintaining democratic principles and free competitive enterprise in a day of Big Business, Big Unions, and Big Government.”

Estes Kefauver (1903–1963) American politician

New Republic (June 22, 1946)

Age, Intelligence, Business, Problem

“If large classes of the population live under conditions which make it difficult if not impossible for them to keep a home together in decent comfort, if the children are habitually underfed, if the housewife is habitually overstrained, if the bread-winner is under-employed or under-paid, if all are unprotected and uninsured against the common hazards of modern industrial life, if sickness, accident, infirmity, or old age, or unchecked intemperance, or any other curse or affliction, break up the home, as they break up thousands of homes, and scatter the family, as they scatter thousands of families in our land, it is not merely the waste of earning-power or the dispersal of a few poor sticks of furniture, it is the stamina, the virtue, safety, and honour of the British race that are being squandered.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 147
Early career years (1898–1929)

Life, Children, Age, Family

“In the "Alexandrian" explanation described above, the multiple from which evolution emerges is both secondary and sinful from its origin: it represents in fact (an idea that smacks of Manicheanism and the Hindu metaphysical systems) broken and pulverized unity. Starting from a very much more modern and completely different point of view, let us assert, as our original postulate, that, the multiple (that is, non-being, if taken in the pure state) being the only rational form of a creatable (creabile) nothingness, the creative act is comprehensible only as a gradual process of arrangement and unification, which amounts to accepting that to create is to unite. And, indeed, there is nothing to prevent our holding that union creates. To the objection that union presupposes already existing elements, I shall answer that physics has just shown us (in the case of mass) that experientially (and for all the protests of "common sense") the moving object exists only as the product of its motion.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

pp. 193–195 https://archive.org/stream/ChristianityAndEvolution/Christianity_and_Evolution#page/n191/mode/2up Christianity and Evolution (1969)

Idea, Sense

“What I propose is that dialogue should take place among cultures and civilizations. And as a first step, I would suggest that cultures and civilizations should not be represented by politicians but by philosophers, scientists, artists and intellectuals. […] Dialogue will lead to a common language and a common language will culminate in a common thought, and this will turn into a common approach to the world and global events.”

Mohammad Khatami (1943) Iranian prominent reformist politician, scholar and shiite faqih.

March 24, 2009 , Lecture in The Australian National University DIALOGUE, JUSTICE AND PEACE Source http://cais.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/bulletins/CAIS%20Bulletin%20Vol%2016%20No%201%20sm.pdf

World

“There are ever two ways of striving to fill one's place in the world: one is by seeking to prove one's self useful; the other, by striving to render one's self useless. The first way is the commoner and the more attractive; the second is the rarer and more noble.”

Henry Clay Trumbull (1830–1903) Union Army chaplain

Quoted by by Richard Foster in Renovare' perspective, Vol. 7, No.2, April, 1997.

World, Way

“By a State I mean, a complete body of free persons united together for their common benefit, to enjoy peaceably what is their own, and to do justice to others.”

James Wilson (1742–1798) one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independe…

Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. (2 Dallas) 419 (1793), at 455.

Justice, Personality

“In seeking what to do, Tolstoy was materially helped by a remarkable workingman, Basil Soutaieff, who was actually following as perfectly as he knew how, the example of Jesus…. When asked, "What is truth?" he answered with conviction, "Truth is love in a common life." When his devotion to the unfortunate, the hungry, and the needy became known to Tolstoy, it had a profound influence upon his thought and eventually worked an entire transformation in his manner of living.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 23

Love, Life, Truth, Help

“Thematic investigation thus becomes a common striving towards awareness of reality and towards self-awareness, which makes this investigation a starting point for the educational process or for cultural action of a liberating character.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

Education, Reality

“It is one of the great achievements of our rule in India that, even if they do not entirely carry them out, educated Indians do accept British principles of justice and liberty. We are condemned by Indians not by the measures of Indian ethical conceptions but by our own, which we have taught them to accept. It is precisely this acceptance by politically conscious Indians of the principles of democracy and liberty which puts us in the position of being able to appeal to them to take part with us in the common struggle; but the success of this appeal and India's response does put upon us the obligation of seeing that we, as far as we may, make them sharers in the things for which we and they are fighting.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to the Cabinet (January 1942), quoted in Paul Addison, The Road to 1945 (London: Pimlico, 1994), pp. 202-203
1940s

Education, Justice, Democracy, Success

“Think not that I have come in quest of common flowers; but rather to bemoan the loss of one whose scent has vanished from the air.”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Tale of Genji

Source: Tale of Genji, The Tale of Genji, trans. Arthur Waley, Ch. 41: Mirage

Flowers, Thinking, Loss

“Religions grow out of the deepest needs of individuals sharing a common awakening, and are not created by "engineers of the soul."”

Daniel Bell book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Foreword: 1978, p. xxix
The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976)

Religion, Soul

“Any effort, policy or program that has as a prerequisite the acceptance of the notion that blacks are inferior is a non-starter with me. I do not believe that kneeling is a position of strength. Nor do I believe that begging is an effective tactic. I am confident that the individual approach, not the group approach, is the better, more acceptable, more supportable and less dangerous one. This approach is also consistent with the underlying principles of this country and the guarantees of freedom through government by consent. I, like Frederick Douglass, believe that whites and blacks can live together and be blended into a common nationality.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Confidence, Support, Effort, Freedom

“The bizarre but all too common transformation of the woman artist from a producer in her own right into a subject for representation forms a leitmotif in the history of art. Confounding subject and object, it undermines the speaking position of the individual woman artist by generalizing her. Denied her individuality, she is displaced from being a producer and becomes instead a sign for male creativity.”

Whitney Chadwick (1943)

Women, Art, and Society: Fourth Edition (2007) ISBN 0-500-20393-8

Art, History

“On this team, we're all united in a common goal: to keep my job.”

Lou Holtz (1937) American college football coach, professional football coach, television sports announcer

Attributed by Ben Weiximann, "Top 15 Funniest Lou Holtz Quotes" http://bleacherreport.com/articles/59377-top-15-funniest-lou-holtz-quotes/, TheBleacherReport.com. Attributed

“With the hubris common to physicists, I have always felt that I have known what good science is — it is theory cast in terms of mechanisms that describe how parts of the universe behave. With sometimes immense historical delay, these mechanisms always move towards being grounded in the larger mechanistic view of the universe. Theories always propose a view of how the universe is. They can never be effectively argued to be true, but only be brought before the bar of empirical evidence. All the modern concern for contextualism, hermeneutics and the social determination of meaning has its point, but is a mere footnote to the massive evidence for this view of science. The overwhelming success within this framework of modern biology over the last half century has provided another major confirmation, if one is needed. Someday we will get another striking confirmation from cognitive science. Though it can be argued that we are well on our way, we still have an immense distance to go. Arguments are no match for the evidence that cognitive science does not control its subject the way physics, chemistry and now biology do.”

Allen Newell (1927–1992) American cognitive scientist

Draft of an introduction to the Mind Matters Symposium http://diva.library.cmu.edu/Newell/mindmatters.html, 26 May 1992, Carnegie Mellon University Archives http://diva.library.cmu.edu/Newell/biography.html

Way, Universe, Science, Success

“You know what I want to become temporarily today: a painter? No. A simple and common designer. But a biting one. I would like to deride humanity, nothing less. And this with the simplest means, in black and white. At the same time - oh blasphemy - I would like to attack our Lord adequately.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote in a letter to his friend de:Hans Bloesch, 1898; as cited in Das Frühwerk 1883-1922 (The early works 1888-1922), Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, 1979, p. 47
Klee originally aspired to become a satirist, not a painter.
1895 - 1902

Time

“There is no doubt whatever that as far as common law is concerned, the Courts in this country have been bound, most of them, by inflexible rules handed down in great measure from the time of the Plantagenets, and until certain modern statutes were passed there was no possibility of altering or improving them.”

James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance (1816–1899) British judge and rose breeder

Cowan v. Duke of Buccleuch (1876), L. R. 2 Ap. Ca. 355.

Law, Time, Country

“Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand. The two boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled common-sense.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies (1954), Ch. 4: Painted Faces and Long Hair

World, Boy, Sense

“Communism was the regime for the privileged elite, capitalism the creed for the common man.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

The Path To Power (1995)

Communication

“Torture is not tolerated by this country on the battlefield or off. Anyone who tortures or abuses a detainee tarnishes the service of every honorable student and soldier in this room today. The President has said this, and I will say it again: those who commit torture in the name of the United States government will be prosecuted. In any discussion of Guantanamo, detainees and military commissions, I think that one final fact helps put things in perspective — and that is the fact that members of al Qaeda are not merely common criminals. Some critics around the world have argued that they are “just” criminals, that their crimes somehow do not amount to war crimes. But here are the facts: al Qaeda seeks to employ weapons of mass slaughter as a means of achieving political goals against both the civilian and military capacity of the United States, Europe, and our allies throughout the world. Its members continue to fight our Armed Forces on battlefields around the world, and they will continue to do so until we stop them. Al Qaeda has committed acts on a scale that transcends mere crime, as recognized by NATO immediately after the attacks of September 11th. Their crimes are therefore nothing less than war crimes. Given the magnitude of the atrocities al Qaeda has committed, there can be no comparison between the crimes of its members and that of common civilian criminals.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech regarding Civil Liberties and the War on Terrorism (November 20, 2006)

War, World, Thinking, Help

“The reasons why the adoption of a system of central planning necessarily produces a totalitarian system are fairly simple. Whoever controls the means must decide which ends they are to serve. As under modern conditions control of economic activity means control of the material means for practically all our ends, it means control over nearly all our activities. The nature of the detailed scale of values which must guide the planning makes it impossible that it should be determined by anything like democratic means. The director of the planned system would have to impose his scale of values, his hierarchy of ends, which, if it is to be sufficient to determine the plan, must include a definite order of rank in which the status of each person is laid down. If the plan is to succeed or the planner to appear successful, the people must be made to believe that the objectives chosen are the right ones. Every criticism of the plan or the ideology underlying it must be treated as sabotage. There can be no freedom of thought, no freedom of the Press, where it is necessary that everything should be governed by a single system of thought. In theory Socialism may wish to enhance freedom, but in practice every kind of collectivism consistently carried thought must produce the characteristic features which Fascism, Nazism, and Communism have in common. Totalitarianism is nothing but consistent collectivism, the ruthless execution of the principle that 'the whole comes before the individual' and the direction of all members of society by a single will supposed to represent the 'whole.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

" Planning, Science and Freedom http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v148/n3759/abs/148580a0.html", Nature 148 (15 November 1941), also available as " Planning, Science, and Freedom https://mises.org/library/planning-science-and-freedom," Mises Daily (Auburn, AL: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, 27 September 2010) 1940s–1950s

People, Communication, Nature, Freedom

“On the other hand, I am accused of not finishing my paintings, no matter how much time I spent to my airs. Well, 'finished' in the common sense of the word, they are certainly not! Finishing in that sense would drag the life out of it.”

Jacob Maris (1837–1899) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / citaat van Jacob Maris, in het Nederlands: Daarentegen wordt mij verweten dat mijn schilderijen niet af zijn, hoe ik mijn lucht ook doorwerkt heb. Nu, 'af' in de gewone beteekenis van het woord is mijn werk zeker niet. Door in dien zin het af te maken, zou ik er het leven uithalen.
in Jacob Maris (1837-1899), M. van Heteren and others; as cited in 'Ik denk in mijn materie', in exhibition catalog of Teylers Museum / Museum Jan Cunen), Zwolle 2003, p. 76

Life, Sense, Time, Painting

“Is marketing management an art or a science? Some marketing observers maintain that good marketing is more of an art and does not lend itself to rigorous analysis and deliberation. Others strongly disagree and contend that marketing management is a highly disciplined enterprise that has much in common with other business disciplines.”

Kevin Lane Keller (1956) American business theorist

Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Keller, Mairead Brady, Malcolm Goodman & Torben Hansen. (2009). Marketing Management. p. 819

Art, Business, Science

“The debate has not been for or against the indivisibility of Eretz Israel. No Zionist can forgo the smallest portion of Eretz Israel. The Debate was over which of two routes would lead quicker to the common goal.”

David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) Israeli politician, Zionist leader, prime minister of Israel

As quoted in * Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (Updated Edition) (South End Press Classics Series)
Noam
Chomsky
162.

“As a country, we have not started to see how much we can achieve as a nation and we will not have any idea of our strength if we continue to deny ourselves the opportunity to come together as one people. We have not been able to pool the resources and talent of our people and exploit them for our common good. It will continue to evade us if we continue to stress our ethnicity and group differences.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

Guest speech to the conference of the Fiji Labour Party, Lautoka, 30 July 2005

People, Idea, Country

“We are forced to distinguish between three kinds of speech: (1) The external, “rhetorical speech,” in the common meaning of this expression, which only refers to images because they affect the passions. Since these images do not stem from insight, however, they remain an object of opinion. This is the case of the purely emotive, false speech: “rhetoric” in the usual negative sense. (2) The speech which arises exclusively from a rational proceeding. It is true that this is of a demonstrative character, but it cannot have a rhetorical effect because purely rational arguments do not attain to the passions, i. e., “theoretical” speech in the usual sense. (3) The true rhetorical speech. This springs from the archai, nondeductible, moving, and indicative, due to its original images. The original speech is that of the wise man, of the sophos, who is not only epistetai, but who with insight leads, guides, and attracts.”

Ernesto Grassi (1902–1991) Italian philosopher

Source: Rhetoric as Philosophy (1980), p. 32

Spring, Sense, Passion, Falseness

“When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Preface
Mere Christianity (1952)

Housing

“I expect better from Catholic bishops. They need to understand that Ukip and the Catholic Church have so much in common. I cannot think of anyone who is a bishop or a priest who would not have the same values for people as we do.”

Margot Parker (1943) UK politician

Margot Parker: ‘The bishops must meet with Ukip’ http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/10/08/margot-parker-the-bishops-must-meet-with-ukip/ (October 8, 2014)

People, Understanding, Thinking

“Organizations have been viewed from many perspectives. Depending upon the background and interests of the investigators, the dimensions and characteristics of organizations that are emphasized vary greatly. However, there does appear to be some agreement about the fact that organizations generally develop as instruments for attaining specific goals, and that they are likely to emerge in situations where people recognize a common or complementary advantage that can best be served through collective, as opposed to individual, action.”

Arthur G. Bedeian (1946) American business theorist

Source: Organizations: Theory and Analysis, 1984, p. 3 (1984; 2)

People, Appearance, Dependency

“Biology is the scientific study of life - in principle, anyway. In practice, biology is the scientific study of life on Earth based on carbon-chain chemistry. There is nothing in its charter that restricts biology to carbon-based life; it is simply that this is the only kind of life that has been available to study. Thus, theoretical biology has long faced the fundamental obstacle that it is impossible to derive general principles from single examples… Without other examples, it is difficult to distinguish essential properties of life - properties that would be shared by any living system - from properties that may be incidental to life in principle, but which happen to be universal to life on Earth due solely to a combination of local historical accident and common genetic descent.”

Christopher Langton (1949) American computer scientist

Source: Artificial Life (1989), p.2

Life, Study, Universe

“All good books have one thing in common — they are truer than if they had really happened.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Pt. 2, Ch. 7 - Similar to his remark in "A Letter from Cuba" (1934)
Papa Hemingway (1966)

Books

“The Grand Inquisitor explains that you have to create mysteries because otherwise the common people will be able to understand things. They have to be subordinated so you have to make things look mysterious and complicated. That's the test of the intellectual. It's also good for them: then you're an important person, talking big words which nobody can understand. Sometimes it gets kind of comical, say in post-modern discourse. Especially around Paris, it has become a comic strip, I mean it's all gibberish. But it's very inflated, a lot of television cameras, a lot of posturing. They try to decode it and see what is the actual meaning behind it, things that you could explain to an eight-year old child. There's nothing there. But these are the ways in which contemporary intellectuals, including those on the Left, create great careers for themselves, power for themselves, marginalize people, intimidate people and so on.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

In Chomsky on Anarchism, 2005.
Quotes 2000s, 2005

People, Way, Understanding, Personality

“Consequences. In real life, these ramifications emanate from every action like ripples from a stone thrown into a pond. Often in movies, especially those that feature characters who don't play by the rules, such penalties are suspended. However, in Christopher Nolan's Batman universe, decisions and actions have consequences. The Dark Knight, arguably the moodiest and most adult superhero motion picture ever to reach the screen, illustrates this lesson in ways that are startling and painful. This is a tough, uncompromising motion picture — one that defies the common notions of what is expected from a "superhero" film. While there are plenty of action sequences and instances of derring-do, The Dark Knight's subtext has a tragic underpinning that would intrigue Shakespeare or the Greeks. It's about power and impotence, sanity and madness, image and reality, selfishness and sacrifice, and — yes — consequences.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1235 of The Dark Knight (2008). Four star reviews

Life, Pain, Penalty, Way

“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 (1973) American author, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic

"The Case for an Anti-Abortion Violence Registry," http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/the-case-for-an-anti-abor_b_222559.html The Huffington Post (2009-06-29)

Sense

“We can take a just pride in the great contribution to the common cause by all those who owe allegiance to the British Crown. … In this great contest we are all engaged in a single enterprise. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen from the United Kingdom, from the British Commonwealth and the Empire, from the United States, and from many nations are found fighting side by side in many ocean and theatres of war. They know that they are engaged in a common service and are inspired by a common faith. In the Atlantic Charter the United Nations have declared the faith that is in them. Against the false gods of cruelty, hatred, and domination they have proclaimed their gospel of freedom, justice, and social security.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Message (2 September 1942), quoted in The Times (3 September 1942), p. 2.
War Cabinet

God, War, Faith, Justice

“So often, people ask me what is the key to success in this industry… or what would be my best advice to give to new comers… and though there are many things I could tell you from my personal experience, persistence and consistency seems to be a common thread to everything I have to say.”

Nikki SooHoo (1988) American actress

Persistently Consistent http://nikkisoohoo.com/blog/2017/10/22/persistently-consistent (October 22, 2017)

People, Success, Personality

“But it is recognized that punishment for the abuse of the liberty accorded to the press is essential to the protection of the public, and that the common law rules that subject the libeler to responsibility for the public offense, as well as for the private injury, are not abolished by the protection extended in our constitutions. The law of criminal libel rests upon that secure foundation. There is also the conceded authority of courts to punish for contempt when publications directly tend to prevent the proper discharge of judicial functions.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

Law

“[The unavoidable] racial war, the war of Slavdom against Germandom…[in which the] Anglo-Saxons with whom we are related by common ancestry, religion and civilisatory striving, allow themselves to be used as tools of the Slavs…if this question…cannot be solved by diplomacy, then it will have to be decided by armed force. The solution can be postponed but the question will arise again in 1 or 2 years. The racial struggle cannot be avoided - perhaps it will not take place now, but it will probably take place in one or two years.”

Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia

Conversation with Arthur de Claparède, the Swiss ambassador (10 December 1912), quoted in John Rohl, 'Germany', in Keith Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914 (London: University College London Press, 1995), p. 41
1910s

War, Religion, Question

“Corruption is the enemy of development. It must be got rid of. Both the government and the people at large must come together to achieve this national objective. You have always shown an ability to understand events happening around you; expressed your views and I am sure you will not fail in building a strong, progressive, cohesive and corruption-free India. These are totally unacceptable and must be opposed by one and all. The government, social organizations, NGOs and other voluntary bodies all have to work collectively. Therefore, their issues received my constant attention during my Presidency. Women have talent and intelligence but due to social constraints and prejudices, it is still a long distance away from the goal of gender equality. A paradigm shift, where, in addition to, physical inputs for farming, a focused emphasis placed on knowledge inputs, can be a promising way forward. This knowledge-based approach will bring immense returns particularly in rainfed and dryland farming areas. I believe economic growth should translate into the happiness and progress of all. Alongwith it, there should be development of art and culture, literature and education, science and technology. We have to see how to harness the many resources of India for achieving common good and for inclusive growth.”

Pratibha Patil (1934) 12th President of India

Patil's goodbye wish: A 'corruption-free India' https://in.news.yahoo.com/patils-goodbye-wish-corruption-free-india-143318154.html in: IANS India Private Limited By Indo Asian News Service, 24 July 2012. Goodybe Wish

Women, Happiness, People, Education

“We have tested, in matters where ordinary intelligence and knowledge are competent to judge, the logical methods and intellectual honesty of the foremost of those who in the name of science eliminate God and degrade man, taking from human life its highest dignity and deepest hope. Now, if in simple matters we find such confusion, such credulity, such violation of every canon of sound reasoning as we have found here, shall we blindly trust in deeper matters — in those matters which always have and always must perplex the intellect of man?
Let us rather, as I said in the beginning, not too much underrate our own powers in what is concerned with common facts and general relations. While we may not be scientists or philosophers we too are men. And as to things which the telescope cannot resolve, nor the microscope reveal, nor the spectrum analysis throw light on, nor the tests of the chemist discover, it is as irrational to accept blindly the dictum of those who say, "Thus saith science!"”

Henry George (1839–1897) American economist

as it is in things that are the proper field of the natural sciences to bow before the dictum of those who say, "Thus saith religion!"
Conclusion : The Moral of this Examination
A Perplexed Philosopher (1892)

Life, Men, God, Religion