Quotes about common (3646 quotes, page 29)

“The Common Market. The so-called Common Market of six nations. Know them all well. Very recently this country spent a great deal of blood and treasure rescuing four of 'em from attacks by the other two.”

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

Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945 (Penguin, 2001), p. 173.
Attlee's speech to a group of anti-Common Market Labour backbench MPs in 1967, as recalled by Douglas Jay to Peter Hennessy in 1983. This was Attlee's last ever speech.
Attributed

Country

“This is a common case,
seriously,
It looks like a fight with him
But she's really fighting with herself.”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

Ladies Night
Lyrics, (Miss)Understood

Fight

“Democracy is not dying. We know it because we have seen it revive — and grow. We know it cannot die — because it is built on the unhampered initiative of individual men and women joined together in a common enterprise — an enterprise undertaken and carried through by the free expression of a free majority.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

Women , Men , Democracy

“Bertie Brookes and I shared a common view that, beyond the practical activities of information provision, there could be discerned a more general science of information. He tended towards a mathematical formulation of this: I was more interested in its social aspects.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: A Long Search for Information (2004), p. 24-25.

Mathematics , Science

“If I am elected President, I will work with anyone who sincerely wants to get this country moving again. I will listen to any idea that is offered in good faith and intended to help solve our problems, not make them worse. I will seek the counsel of members of Congress from both parties in forming government policy before I ask them to support it. I will ask Democrats to serve in my administration. My administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability. I will hold weekly press conferences. I will regularly brief the American people on the progress our policies have made and the setbacks we have encountered. When we make errors, I will confess them readily, and explain what we intend to do to correct them. I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the Prime Minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons.”

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

[Text of McCain's Speech on First-Term Goals, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/15/text_of_mccains_vision_of_2013.html, washingtonpost.com, 2008-05-15, 2008-06-01]
2000s, 2008

People , Faith , Error , Idea

“The most profound breach in this country is not between the rich and the poor, but between the people and the intellectuals. In their view of life, the American people are predominantly Apollonian. The mainstream intellectuals are Dionysian. This means the people are reality-oriented, common sense-oriented, technology-oriented. The intellectuals call this "materialistic," and "middle-class." The intellectuals are emotion-oriented, and seek in panic an escape from a reality they are unable to deal with, and from a technological civilization that ignores their feelings.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Apollo and Dionysus (1969)

Life , People , Feeling , Reality

“Such abstruse ideas are totally alien to Chopin. The Romantic interweaving of music and literature that was characteristic of Schumann and Liszt was a negligible source of inspiration. Schumann dedicated Kreisleriana to Chopin, but in fact Chopin’s consciousness for classical strength and form had nothing in common with the exalted, torn, eccentric and confused character of the work.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings about Chopin and Schumann

Music , Literature , Idea

“People first want to spend money on food -- that is common across the world. The second, in India, is education. In many parts of the world, it comes way down the list of priorities. So, there is a huge opportunity.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Mukesh Ambani on retail and SEZ plans

Money , People , World , Education

“The Reason of the present Animadversions. …How far Hevelius has proceeded. That his instruments do not much exceed Ticho. The bigness, Sights and Divisions, not considerably differing. Ticho not ignorant of his new way of Division. …That so great curiosity as Hevelius strives for is needless without the use of Telescopic Sights, the power of the naked eye being limited. That no one part of an Instrument should be more perfect than another. …
That if Hevelius could have been prevail'd on by the Author to have used Telescopic Sights, his observations might have been 40 times more exact than they are.
That Hevelius his Objections against Telescopic sights are of no validity; but the Sights without Telescopes cannot distinguish a less angle then half a Minute.
That an Instrument of 3 foot Radius with Telescopes, will do more then one of 3 score foot Radius with common Sights, the eye being unable to distinguish. This is proved by the undiscernableness of spots in the Moon, and by an Experiment with Lines on a paper, by which a Standard is made of the power of the eye. …
A Conclusion of the Animadversions. That the learn'd World is obllig'd to Hevelius for what he hath done, but would have more, if he had used other instruments.
That the Animadvertor both contrived some hundreds of Instruments, each of very great accurateness for taking Angles, Levels, &c.; and a particular Arithmetical lnstrument for performing all Operations in Arithmetick, with the greatest ease, swiftness and certainty imaginable.
That the Reader may be the more certain of this, the Author describes an Instrument for taking Angles in the Heavens…”

Robert Hooke (1635–1703) English natural philosopher, architect and polymath

Contents, Animadversions on the First Part of the Machina Coelestis of the Astronomer Johannes Hevelius https://books.google.com/books?id=KAtPAAAAcAAJ (1674)

World , Way , Imagination , Time

“Friendless, adj. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Truth , Sense

“I have from the beginning been adverse to distant expeditions for the purpose of expanding our colonial possessions. They are necessarily attended with a further division of our force, and with a diminution of our means of acting in Europe. Whilst we are acquiring colonies, the enemy is subjugating the Continent; and though I am by no means disposed to raise doubts of our ability to maintain the contest in this manner, I cannot help fearing the effect of any system which might enable the French, either completely to subdue the remaining Powers of the Continent, or to engage them in opinion against this country…In Europe the most formidable danger exists. It is there that every effort should be made to stop the career of the enemy. Our interest and our reputation are equally at stake. Our allies have a right to look to us for support, and our honour requires that we should not appear to be wanting to the common cause. With a view, therefore, to a continuance of the war on the Continent, I am strongly of opinion that we should immediately collect and prepare for embarkation the largest possible British force that can be made applicable to such a service.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Minute written whilst Foreign Secretary (autumn 1806) and docketed as 'objections intended to have been submitted to the King, if the plan for more extended operations in South America had been persevered in', quoted in Lieutenant-General Hon. C. Grey, Some Account of the Life and Opinions of Charles, Second Earl Grey (London: Richard Bentley, 1861), pp. 135-136.
1800s

War , Fear , Support , Effort

“It is said that life imitates art, and in FPJ's case that was true. He played tough, honest heroes who fought for the common tao; and as someone aspiring for the most powerful office in the land, he exhibited those same qualities, and was supported by millions of his countrymen.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Statement: Remembering the King

Life , Art , Support

“In the mass movement into the suburban areas a new kind of community was produced, which caricatured both the historic city and the archetypal suburban refuge: a multitude of uniform, unidentifiable houses, lined up inflexibly, at uniform distances, on uniform roads, in a treeless communal waste, inhabited by people of the same class, the same income, the same age group, witnessing the same television performances, eating the same tasteless prefabricated foods, from the same freezers, conforming in every outward and inward respect to a common mold, manufactured in the central metropolis. Thus the ultimate effect of the suburban escape in our time is, ironically, a low-grade uniform environment from which escape is impossible.”

Lewis Mumford book The City in History

pg 486
The City in History (1961)

People , Age , Food , Communication

“No child, I think, can walk through a common market or slaughter-house without receiving moral injury; nor am I quite sure that any virtuous adult can.”

William Alcott (1798–1859) American physician and author

Source: Vegetable Diet (1838), pp. 270-271

Thinking , Housing

“The common root of modern science and Christian theology was Greek philosophy. The historical accident that caused the Christian religion to become heavily theological was the fact that Jesus was born in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire at the time when the prevailing culture was profoundly Greek.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

Religion , Science , Time , Parting

“Common experience is the gold reserve which confers an exchange value on the currency which words are; without this reserve of shared experiences, all our pronouncements are cheques drawn on insufficient funds.”

René Daumal book A Night of Serious Drinking

Foreword
A Night of Serious Drinking (1938)

“My first essay at making a steam engine was when I was fifteen. I then made a real working; steam-engine, 1 3/4 diameter cylinder, and 8 in. stroke, which not only could act, but really did some useful work; for I made it grind the oil colours which my father required for his painting. Steam engine models, now so common, were exceedingly scarce in those days, and very difficult to be had; and as the demand for them arose, I found it both delightful and profitable to make them; as well as sectional models of steam engines, which I introduced for the purpose of exhibiting the movements of all the parts, both exterior and interior. With the results of the sale of such models I was enabled to pay the price of tickets of admission to the lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry delivered in the University of Edinburgh. About the same time (1826) I was so happy as to be employed by Professor Leslie in making models and portions of apparatus required by him for his lectures and philosophical investigations, and I had also the inestimable good fortune to secure his friendship. His admirably clear manner of communicating a knowledge of the fundamental principles of mechanical science rendered my intercourse with him of the utmost importance to myself. A hearty, cheerful, earnest desire to toil in his service, caused him to take pleasure in instructing me by occasional explanations of what might otherwise have remained obscure.”

James Nasmyth (1808–1890) Scottish mechanical engineer and inventor

James Nasmyth in: Industrial Biography: Iron-workers and Tool-makers https://books.google.nl/books?id=ZMJLAAAAMAAJ, Ticknor and Fields, 1864. p. 337

Friendship , Pleasure , Communication , Nature

“[JawlenskyPickWerefkin] Yes, we [ Marianne Werefkin and Gabriéle] shared very much the same tastes and ideas, when we lived together in this house (the so-called 'Russian house' in Murnau]. She was extremely perceptive and intelligent, but Jawlensky [living with Marianne Werefkin] didn't always approve her work... Suddenly Jawlensky would pick on some tiny detail of one of Marianne's best and most original pictures and exclaim: 'That patch of color, there, is laid on much too flat and smoothly. It's just like old Riepin' [famous Russian painter Ilya Repin ] and their common former teacher in Russia]. Of course it was nonsense and he was only saying it to annoy her. But Jawlensky really was a devotee of the 'touche de peinture' of the French Fauvists, rather than an innovator, a believer in a new kind of art of the future.”

Gabriele Münter (1877–1962) German painter

Source: Interview by Edouard Roditi (1958), pp. 118-119

Art , Color , Intelligence , Idea

“Sadiq Khan’s latest outburst that President Trump is ‘not welcome’ in London is well beyond his pay grade and flies in the face of common courtesy. It is also hypocritical: he is willing to host the ambassadors of countries which have a travel ban on Israeli citizens at a reception at City Hall, but hurls insults at President Trump who has highlighted the horrors of Islamism and wants to protect his own citizens from violent jihadis. His so-called drive to be ‘inclusive’ is a sham. He has snubbed the democratically elected President of the United States and the American people who voted for him, and London will be worse off for the continuing deterioration of his tone.”

David Kurten (1971) British politician

‘Not Welcome’: London’s Muslim Mayor Repeats Calls to Cancel Trump Visit http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/12/26/not-welcome-londons-muslim-mayor-repeats-calls-cancel-trump-visit/ (December 26, 2017)

People , Travel , Country

“Since in this view dictatorships generate development while development leads to democracy, the best way to democracy was said to be a circuitous one. Yet common sense would indicate that in order to strengthen democracy we should strengthen democracy, not support dictatorships. And, even if G. B. Shaw warned that "common sense is that which tells us that the world is flat," the lesson of our analysis is that this time it is the best guide. With development, democracy can flourish in poor countries.”

Adam Przeworski (1940) Polish-American academic

Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi, "Modernization: Theories and Facts", World Politics (Jan., 1997)

World , Way , Democracy , Support

“There was something superficial in attributing anything so awful as the Great Depression to anything so insubstantial as speculation in common stocks.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Source: Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975), Chapter XIV, When The Money Stopped, p. 183-184.

“The ultimate repository of herd influence is language—a device which not only condenses the opinions of those with whom we share a common vocabulary, but sums up the perceptual approach of swarms who have passed on.”

Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author

Source: Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), Ch.8 Reality is a Shared Hallucination

“The wide experience to be gained at the Scots Bar has its advantages. It does not enable one to become such an expert in any single department as the English specialist… but it tends to a sound knowledge of the legal principles common to all branches of the law. The Scottish Judges have always been more interested in principle than in precedent and the Bar have conformed to this lead. In the House of Lords this feature of Scottish advocacy has been often remarked and admired.”

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

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), At the Scottish bar, p. 48

Law , Knowledge , Housing

“The Ethics of Competition is a book of Frank H. Knight's writings on a common theme: the problem of social control and its various implications. Knight believed in free economic institutions but was also aware that the competitive economic system could be improved. One of the central figures of neoclassical economics in the twentieth century, Knight pursued a lifelong campaign against irrationalities of nationalism, religious fanaticism, and group conflict, while conceding that these were fundamental orientations of human action that might yet frustrate his own work as an economist. While Knight vigorously defended human freedom and the liberal order, he also was sufficiently moved by the shortcomings of liberalism as to condemn it as rife with abuse.”

Frank Knight (1885–1972) American economist

Abstract
The Ethics of Competition, 1935

Books , Problem , Freedom

“We are keenly in sympathy with the representatives of Labour. We have too few of them in the House of Commons. …The Liberal party, high and low, have discovered, if they ever forgot it, that the real road to success…lies in adhering to the old principles of the party.”

Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836–1908) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to Liberals in Belmont (2 January 1903), quoted in John Wilson, C.B.: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (London: Constable, 1973), p. 394
Leader of the Opposition

Success , Housing

“Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s32.html James Madison (28 October 1785)
1780s

Law , Nature , Country

“Self-astonishment is achieved when, by some process I can't fathom, common words are moved, or move themselves, into clusters of meaning so intense that they seem to stand up from the page, three-dimensional almost.”

Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016) English poet and professor

A matter of timing: The Guardian, Saturday 21 September 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/sep/21/featuresreviews.guardianreview28/print

“[C]apitalist savings 'lead' profits. This result may appear paradoxical. 'Common sense' would suggest the opposite sequence—namely, that savings are determined by profits. This, how ever is not the case.”

Michał Kalecki (1899–1970) Polish economist

Source: Theory of Economic Dynamics (1965), Chapter 4, Profits and Investments, p. 55

Sense , Appearance

“Thou unassuming Common-place
Of Nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace,
Which Love makes for thee!”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

To the Same Flower (the Daisy), st. 1 (1805).

Love , Home , Nature

“The challenge for Labour is that there’s huge support for working class, from mining communities, from northern working class communities for UKIP, which wouldn’t be the case if they were a straightforward Thatcherite party. So an ability to engage with the rage and dispossession people feel is absolutely necessary for constructive politics. And how do you build a common good between locals and immigrants? How do you build a common good between north and south, between the small towns and cities? We’re not thinking of the levels of abandonment that people feel, and UKIP express that.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

Maurice Glasman on Democracy, creative destruction and Wolf Hall https://soundcloud.com/university-of-cambridge/1-maurice-glasman-on-democracy

People , Feeling , Communication , Support

“The last decade has seen a great deal of research on the perception of causation and the consequences of such perception. Conducted primarily within social psychology, the focus has been the perceived causes of other persons' behavior. A parallel analysis has been made of the perceived causes of one's own behavior, and the liveliest recent topic has concerned differences between other-perception and self-perception. The study of perceived causation is identified by the term "attribution theory," attribution referring to the perception inference of cause. As we will see, there is not one but many attribution "theories" and the term refers to several different kinds of problem. The common ideas are that people interpret behavior in terms of its causes and that these interpretations play an important role in determining reactions to the behavior.”

Harold Kelley (1921–2003) American psychologist & academic

Source: "Attribution theory and research." 1980, p. 458; Lead paragraph

People , Behavior , Idea , Problem

“and here I give it under my hand that I will most willingly begin upon a new canvas [after his first portrait of Lady Dartmouth was criticized and rejected]. But I only for the present beg your Lordship will give me leave to try an experiment upon that picture to prove the amazing effect of dress. I meant to treat it as a cast-off picture and dress it (contrary, I know, to Lady Dartmouth's taste) in the modern way; the worst consequence that can attend it will be her ladyship's being angry with me for a time. I am vastly out in my notion if the face does not immediately look like; but I must know if Lady Dartmouth powders or not in common. I only beg to know that and to have the [first] picture sent down [back] to me..”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainborough's letter to Lord Dartmouth, 13 April 1771; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 74
1770 - 1788

Way , Time

“Aristotle based his opposition to common ownership not only on logical but also, and principally, on utilitarian grounds. It is impractical because no one takes proper care of objects that are not his: ‘How immeasurable greater is the pleasure, when a man feels a thing to be his own, for surely the love of self is a feeling implanted by nature…”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

Source: Property and Freedom (1999), p. 8

Love , Pleasure , Feeling , Nature

“I got to know Asia Argento ten months ago. Our commonality is the shared pain of being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. My heart is broken. I will continue my work on behalf of victims everywhere.
None of us know the truth of the situation and I’m sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.”

Rose McGowan (1973) American actress

5:46am https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/1031477689947967489 and 9:35am https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/1031535197433602048 20 August 2018 reaction to accusations against Asia Argento according to Deadline https://deadline.com/2018/08/rose-mcgowan-asia-argento-jimmy-bennett-heart-broken-sexual-assault-payoff-report-reaction-1202448340/, E! https://www.eonline.com/ca/news/961510/rose-mcgowan-reacts-to-asia-argento-reportedly-paying-off-sexual-assault-accuser, Entertainment Weekly https://ew.com/movies/2018/08/20/rose-mcgowan-asia-argento/, Variety https://variety.com/2018/biz/news/rose-mcgowan-asia-argento-sexual-assault-accusation-1202909955/ and Vulture http://www.vulture.com/2018/08/rose-mcgowan-responds-to-asia-argento-assault-allegations.html.

Pain , Truth , Heart

“Many workers in the biological sciences — physiologists, psychologists, sociologists — are interested in cybernetics and would like to apply its methods and techniques to their own specialty. Many have, however, been prevented from taking up the subject by an impression that its use must be preceded by a long study of electronics and advanced pure mathematics; for they have formed the impression that cybernetics and these subjects are inseparable.
The author is convinced, however, that this impression is false. The basic ideas of cybernetics can be treated without reference to electronics, and they are fundamentally simple; so although advanced techniques may be necessary for advanced applications, a great deal can be done, especially in the biological sciences, by the use of quite simple techniques, provided they are used with a clear and deep understanding of the principles involved. It is the author’s belief that if the subject is founded in the common-place and well understood, and is then built up carefully, step by step, there is no reason why the worker with only elementary mathematical knowledge should not achieve a complete understanding of its basic principles. With such an understanding he will then be able to see exactly what further techniques he will have to learn if he is to proceed further; and, what is particularly useful, he will be able to see what techniques he can safely ignore as being irrelevant to his purpose.”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

Preface
An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956)

Mathematics , Idea , Understanding , Knowledge

“What fascinates me about Van Gogh is that his sun dries up everything. Maybe he was melodramatic but my point really is.... if you are a painter you have to face that self-consciousness. You get dirty and pathetic; very miserable. It makes me self-conscious to talk about it. There is something corrupt on art. Nothing do with any 'ism' but a thing in nature loses its innocence and becomes a grotesque thing.... maybe this difficulty is personal with me, and maybe it is something that other painters have in common. Perhaps it is also something of today.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

in conversation with W.C. Seitz
Quote from Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, W.C, Seitz, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1983, p. 121.
1980's

Art , Nature , Sun , Personality

“The Beer Shops licensed to have the Beer drunk on the Premises, are a Pest to the Community. They are Haunts of Thieves and Schools for Prostitutes. They demoralize the lower Classes. I wish you would turn your mind to consider Whether this Evil could not be abated. That Beer should be sold like anything Else, to be taken away by the Purchaser to be consumed at Home is most reasonable and the more People are enabled so to supply the labouring Classes the better, but the words “licensed to be drunk on the Premises” are by the common People interpreted as applicable to the Customers as well as to the Liquor, and well do they avail themselves of the License.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to William Ewart Gladstone (20 October 1853), quoted in Philip Guedalla (ed.), Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851-1865 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1928), pp. 95-96.
1850s

People , School , Home , Communication

“My target is what most libertarians have in common — with each other, and with their ostensible enemies. Libertarians serve the state all the better because they declaim against it. At bottom, they want what it wants. But you can’t want what the state wants without wanting the state, for what the state wants is the conditions in which it flourishes.”

Bob Black (1951) American anarchist

The Libertarian as Conservative (1984)

“It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million of faces there should be none alike.”

Thomas Browne book Religio Medici

Section 2
Religio Medici (1643), Part II

Men

“The group self or "we" is simply an "I" which includes other persons. One identifies himself with a group and speaks of the common will, opinion, service, or the like in terms of "we" and "us." The sense of it is stimulated by co-operation within and opposition without.”

Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American sociologist

Source: Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902, p. 209

Sense , Personality

“A cure for old age is a very common wish,” Kurtz observed. “Dashed slug-a-beds want to be shot by a jealous husband, not a nurse bored with emptying the bedpan.”

Charles Stross book Singularity Sky

Source: Singularity Sky (2003), Chapter 15, “Delivery Service” (p. 317)

Age

“You have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.”

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

" Galloway v the US Senate: transcript of statement http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1616578,00.html", The Times, May 18, 2005
Testimony before the US Senate on May 17, 2005.

War

“My dear Sensier, - I shall be greatly obliged if after reading and sealing the enclosed letter, you will take it to Rue du Delta, No. 8. [Paris].... Jaque [common friend and painter] and I have settled to stay here [ Barbizon ] for some time, and have accordingly each of us taken rooms. The prices are excessively low compared to those in Paris; and as it is easy to get to town if necessary, and the country is superbly beautiful, we hope to work more quietly here, and perhaps do better things. In fact, we intend to spend some time here... I wish you good-bye, with many hearty embraces. Jacque sends you warm remembrances, and will answer your letter tomorrow.”

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) French painter

Quote from Millet's first letter to fr:Alfred_Sensier, from Barbizon, 28 June 1849; as cited by Julia Cartwright in Jean Francois Millet, his Life and Letters, Swan Sonnenschein en Co, Lim. London / The Macmillian Company, New York; second edition, September 1902, p. 95
1835 - 1850

Beauty , Hope , Time , Reading

“And as for the close connection between philosophy and poetry, we can refer to a little-known statement by Thomas Aquinas in his Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics [I, 3]: the Philosopher is akin to the Poet in this, that both are concerned with the mirandum, the "wondrous," the astonishing, or whatever calls for astonishment or wonder. This statement is not that easy to fathom, since Thomas, like Aristotle, was a very sober thinker, completely opposed to any Romantic confusion of properly distinct realms. But on the basis of their common orientation towards the "wonderful" (the mirandum — something not to be found in the world of work!) — on this basis, then, of this common transcending-power, the philosophical act is related to the "wonderful," is in fact more closely related to it than to the exact, special sciences; to this point we shall return.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, pp. 68–69
The Aquinas quote cited — "The reason why the philosopher can be compared to the poet is that both are concerned with wonder" — is the epigraph of "The Philosophical Act".

World , Science

“It will be, I suppose, a foolhardy Government that tries to push through legislation making knowledge of both official languages one of the qualifications for election to the House of Commons or appointment to the Senate, but maybe it will have to come to this as a price we must pay for equality of the two great language groups of our founding fathers.”

Judy LaMarsh (1924–1980) Canadian politician, writer, broadcaster and barrister.

Source: Memoirs Of A Bird In A Gilded Cage (1969), CHAPTER 7, The Favreau tragedy, p. 134

Knowledge , Housing

“The relevant fact about the history of the British Isles and above all of England is its separateness in a political sense from the history of continental Europe. The English have never belonged to it and have always known that they did not belong. The assertion contains no element of paradox. The Angevin Empire contradicts it as little as the English claim to the throne of France; neither the possession of Gascony nor the inheritance of Hanover made Edward I or George III anything but English sovereigns. When Henry VIII declared that 'this realm of England is an empire (imperium) of itself', he was making not a new claim but a very old one; but he was making it at a very significant point of time. He meant—as Edward I had meant, when he said the same over two hundred years before—that there is an imperium on the continent, but that England is another imperium outside its orbit and is endowed with the plenitude of its own sovereignty. The moment at which Henry VIII repeated this assertion was that of what is misleadingly called 'the reformation'—misleadingly, because it was, and is, essentially a political and not a religious event. The whole subsequent history of Britain and the political character of the British people have taken their colour and trace their unique quality from that moment and that assertion. It was the final decision that no authority, no law, no court outside the realm would be recognised within the realm. When Cardinal Wolsey fell, the last attempt had failed to bring or keep the English nation within the ambit of any external jurisdiction or political power: since then no law has been made for England outside England, and no taxation has been levied in England by or for an authority outside England—or not at least until the proposition that Britain should accede to the Common Market.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech to The Lions' Club, Brussels (24 January 1972), from The Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out (Elliot Right Way Books, 1973), pp. 49-50
1970s

People , Law , History , Decision

“Mrs. Krantz, having dined at Mark's Club, insists that it is exclusive. There would not have been much point to her dining there if she did not think that. A bigger snob than she might point out that the best reason for not dining at Mark’s Club is the chance of finding Mrs Krantz there. It takes only common sense, though, to tell you that on those terms exclusiveness in not just chimerical but plain tedious. You would keep better company eating Kentucky Fried Chicken in a launderette.”

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

Ibid.
Essays and reviews, From the Land of Shadows (1982)

Thinking , Sense , Chance

“A distinction does not have to be clear to be important, and, at some point, there is a common-sense dividing line between procedural and violent conflict. Violence is most closely associated with conquest as a form of conflict settlement, though violence is descriptive of a conflict process rather than of a conflict settlement. It is quite possible, for instance, for conquest to be nonviolent, that is, for one party to be absorbed in another or for one organization to be dissolved by strictly procedural means. Departments are organized out of existence, countries are federated or united, organizations are laid down, and firms are bankrupted by purely procedural processes, without more than perhaps a trace of legal coercion lurking in the background.”

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

Source: 1960s, Conflict and defense: A general theory, 1962, p. 323

Sense , Country

“Ignorance or disregard of our evolutionary heritage, and of the fundamental biological, emotional, cognitive, and social similarities on which much in everyday human life and thought depend, can lead to speculative philosophies and empirical programs that misconstrue the natural scope and limits of our species-specific abilities and competencies. The intellectual and moral consequences of this misconstrual have varying significance, both for ourselves and for others, for example, in the ways relativism informs currently popular notions of "separate but equal" cultural worlds whose peoples are in some sense incommensurably different from ourselves and from one another. Relativism aspires directly to mutual tolerance of irreducible differences. Naturalism-the evolutionary-based biological and cognitive understanding of our common nature and humanity-aims first to render cultural diversity comprehensible. If anything, evolution teaches us that from one or a few forms wondrously many kinds will arise.”

Scott Atran (1952) Anthropologist

Introduction: an evolutionary riddle, p. 17
In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion (2002)

Life , People , World , Way

“We need to develop within our children and young people the capacity to respect the cultures and beliefs of the different groups that make up our society; and we need to develop the resolve to treat each other justly. Secondly, we must eliminate, so far as any society can, the under-achievement of many of our children and young people from all sections of the community. We need to raise the performance of all pupils and to tackle the obstacles to higher achievement which are common to all. But we also need to tackle those special factors which additionally may contribute to the under-achievement of many members of our ethnic minorities.”

Keith Joseph (1918–1994) British barrister and politician

Speech in London (20 May 1986).
1980s

Children , People , Communication

“Common men talk bagfuls of religion but do not practise even a grain of it. The wise man speaks little, even though his whole life is religion expressed in action.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (1960), p. 152

Life , Men , Religion

“They did not talk or want to talk. It was as if they were afraid to talk for fear of spoiling something beautiful. But Anne had never felt so near Katherine Brooke before. By some magic of its own the winter night had brought them together... almost together but not quite.
When they came out to the main road and a sleigh flashed by, bells ringing, laughter tinkling, both girls gave an involuntary sigh. It seemed to both that they were leaving behind a world that had nothing in common with the one to which they were returning... a world where time was not... which was young with immortal youth... where souls communed with each other in some medium that needed nothing so crude as words.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery book Anne of Windy Poplars

Part 2, Ch. 5
Anne of Windy Poplars (1936)

Youth , World , Fear , Beauty

“In astronomy two characteristics are common to all data on which the solution of the great problems depends. The first is the extreme minuteness of the quantities to be measured. …New epochs were inaugurated in the beginning of the seventeenth century by the invention of the telescope, and in the last third of the nineteenth by the discovery of photography and spectroscopy…. The other characteristic is that astronomy always requires a very large number of data. …These two characteristics of the data that the astronomer requires to build his science on make two things more necessary in astronomy than in any other science: patience and organised coöperation. …The astronomer—each working at his own task…—is always conscious of belonging to a community, whose members, separated in space and time, nevertheless feel joined by a very real tie, almost of kinship. …whatever his special work may be it is always a link in a chain, which derives its value from the fact that there is another link to the left and one to the right of it. It is the chain that is important, not the separate links.”

Willem de Sitter (1872–1934) Dutch cosmologist

Kosmos (1932)

Feeling , Communication , Problem , Science

“Here you stand, after conquering mighty nations and subduing the world. I therefore think it foolish for me to goad you with words, as though you were men who had not been proved in action. Let a new leader or an untried army resort to that. It is not right for me to say anything common, nor ought you to listen. For what is war but your usual custom? Or what is sweeter for a brave man than to seek revenge with his own hand? It is a right of nature to glut the soul with vengeance. Let us then attack the foe eagerly; for they are ever the bolder who make the attack. Despise this union of discordant races! To defend oneself by alliance is proof of cowardice. See, even before our attack they are smitten with terror. They seek the heights, they seize the hills and, repenting too late, clamor for protection against battle in the open fields. You know how slight a matter the Roman attack is. While they are still gathering in order and forming in one line with locked shields, they are checked, I will not say by the first wound, but even by the dust of battle. Then on to the fray with stout hearts, as is your wont. Despise their battle line. Attack the Alani, smite the Visigoths! Seek swift victory in that spot where the battle rages. For when the sinews are cut the limbs soon relax, nor can a body stand when you have taken away the bones. Let your courage rise and your own fury burst forth! Now show your cunning, Huns, now your deeds of arms! Let the wounded exact in return the death of his foe; let the unwounded revel in slaughter of the enemy. No spear shall harm those who are sure to live; and those who are sure to die Fate overtakes even in peace. And finally, why should Fortune have made the Huns victorious over so many nations, unless it were to prepare them for the joy of this conflict. Who was it revealed to our sires the path through the Maeotian swamp, for so many ages a closed secret? Who, moreover, made armed men yield to you, when you were as yet unarmed? Even a mass of federated nations could not endure the sight of the Huns. I am not deceived in the issue;--here is the field so many victories have promised us. I shall hurl the first spear at the foe. If any can stand at rest while Attila fights, he is a dead man.”

Attila (406–453) King of the Hunnic Empire

As quoted by Jordanes, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html#attila, translated by Charles C. Mierow

Death , Men , Fate , War

“Give me a man or a woman with common sense and who is not an idiot and I assure you can make a leader out of him or her.”

Sam Manekshaw (1914–2008) First Field marshal of the Indian Army

During a lecture on leadership quoted in [Field Marshal KM Kariappa Memorial Lectures, 1995-2000, http://books.google.com/books?id=Eux31FCNj8MC&pg=PA21, 2001, Lancer Publishers, 978-81-7062-119-5, 21–]

Sense

“It is my opinion, that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time I assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of Government and legislation whatsoever. The colonists are the subjects of this kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen… The Americans are the sons, not the bastards, of England. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power… When, therefore, in this House we give and grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give and grant to your Majesty,— what? Our own property?— No! We give and grant to your Majesty, the property of your Majesty's Commons of America… The distinction between legislation and taxation is essentially necessary to liberty… There is an idea in some, that the colonies are virtually represented in this House… Is he represented by any knight of the shire, in any county in this kingdom?… Or will you tell him that he is represented by any representative of a borough?— a borough which perhaps its own representatives never saw.— This is what is called the rotten part of the constitution. It cannot continue a century. If it does not drop, it must be amputated… I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to let themselves be made slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest… The gentleman asks, When were the colonies emancipated? I desire to know when were they made slaves?”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons on the Stamp Act (14 January 1766), quoted in William Pitt, The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (London: Aylott & Jones, 1848), pp. 71-6.

People , Feeling , Idea , Nature

“He kept telling me I was queer, and I didn't like it. The word, I mean. Shutting you away, somehow; roping you off with a lot of people you don't feel much in common with, half of whom hate the other half anyway, and just keep together so that they can lean up against each other for support.”

Mary Renault book The Charioteer

Source: The Charioteer (1953), p. 164

Hate , People , Feeling , Support

“One common tactic [socialists like to use] is to point to countries that liberals like and dub them real-world models of socialism. Thus Scandinavian countries with generous social safety nets become the real-world proof that socialism works. Others will just point to government-run programs or institutions—national parks, the VA, whatever—and say “socialism!””

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

What about Venezuela? “Shut up,” they explain.
2010s, 2018, Socialism is So Hot Right Now (2018)

World , Country

“Spinoza, then, emerged as the supreme philosophical bogeyman of Early Enlightenment Europe. Admittedly, historians have rarely emphasized this. It has been much more common, and still is, to claim that Spinoza was rarely understood and had very little influence, a typical example of an abiding historiographical refrain which appears to be totally untrue but nevertheless, since the nineteenth century, has exerted an enduring appeal for all manner of scholars. In fact, no one else during the century 1650–1750 remotely rivalled Spinoza's notoriety as the chief challenger of the fundamentals of revealed religion, received ideas, tradition, morality, and what was everywhere regarded, in absolutist and non-absolutist states alike, as divinely constituted political authority.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)
G - L, Jonathan Israel

Religion , Idea , Appearance

“The concept of property itself had come up out of the common law and carried with it the idea of a natural, or common-law rights of liberty to acquire, use and dispose of physical things.”

John R. Commons (1862–1945) United States institutional economist and labor historian

Source: Legal foundations of capitalism. 1924, p. 32

Law , Idea , Nature

“The statute is like a tyrant; where he comes he makes all void; but the common law is like a nursing father, makes only void that part where the fault is, and preserves the rest.”

Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet (1554–1625) English politician

Quoted by Sir Thomas Twisden, 1st Baronet, C.J., in Maleverer v. Redshaw (1670), 1 Mod. Rep. 36 ; and by Wilmot, L.C.J., in Collins v. Blantern (1767), 2 Wils. 351.

Law , Parting

“She never liked the constant presence of her husbands or lovers and did not like, she soon found out, to be alone — a dilemma in one shape or another common to most of mankind.”

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007) Novelist, short story writer, literary critic

"Katherine Anne Porter" (p. 302)
American Fictions (1999)

Lovers

“One way or another, the question whether Britain remains a free nation or becomes the vassal of a totalitarian Europe will be settled soon, and those who oppose our further integration would do well to remember, and proclaim as widely and as loudly as possible, the unashamed dishonesty that has characterised the pro-European movement from the beginning. Not since Lenin and Hitler cast their obscene spells has there been a political campaign so blatantly deceitful. In 1972 we were assured it was merely a Common Market, and that no political union could be envisaged: it is now shamelessly admitted that this was untrue, that political union was the aim from the start.”

George MacDonald Fraser (1925–2008) English-born author of Scottish descent

The Europe Fiasco. p. 71.
The Light's On At Signpost (2002)

Way , Question

“The common purpose of pornography is to enhance sexual pleasure or sexual fantasy. It is meant to be free of things like guilt, insecurity, anger or responsibility. It can also be detached from the struggles of intimacy. I chose to use imagery common in pornography but placed these images in the emotional context which included intense guilt, anger, regret, anguish, and confusion. In this context, it is difficult for the images to enhance sexual pleasure or sexual fantasy. Instead, the graphic images work better to enhance the discomfort of intimacy.”

Vincent Gallo (1961) American film director, writer, model, actor and musician

Another Man Essay

Pleasure , Anger

“A Latino-American undergraduate who is a student of Shakespeare is not "culturally appropriating" anyone’s white-European legacy, but instead seeking transcendence of ideas and a common humanity. Asian-Americans are not “overrepresented” at premier campuses. Their high-profile presence should be praised as a model, not punished as aberrant by number-crunching bureaucrats. African-Americans who excel in physics and engineering are not “acting white” but finding the proper pathways for their natural talents. Being one-half Southeast Asian or three-quarters white is not the touchstone to one’s essence and is irrelevant to one’s character and conduct. No one is impinging on anyone’s culture when blacks dye their hair blond, or when blondes prefer to wear cornrow braids. Campuses desperately need unity czars, not diversity czars. Otherwise, we will end up as 50 separate and rival nations — just like other failed states in history whose diverse tribes and races destroyed themselves in a Hobbesian dog-eat-dog war with one another.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, Diversity: History's Pathway to Chaos (2016)

War , Dogs , History , Idea

“The assertion that “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s,” is true enough; but the assertion that “What is nobody’s business is everybody’s,” is still truer. Now, a love affair, for example, is, of all others, a thing apart--an enchanted dream, where “common griefs and cares come not.” It is like a matrimonial quarrel--never to be benefited by the interference of others: it is a sweet and subtle language, “that none understand but the speakers;” and yet this fine and delicate spirit is most especially the object of public curiosity. It is often supposed before it exists: it is taken for granted, commented upon, continued and ended, without the consent of the parties themselves; though a casual observer might suppose that they were the most interested in the business.”

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

The Monthly Magazine

Love , Dreams , Understanding , Business

“Novels are the Socratic dialogs of our time. This free form has become the refuge of common sense in its flight from pedantry.”

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) German poet, critic and scholar

Die Romane sind die sokratischen Dialoge unserer Zeit. In diese liberale Form hat sich die Lebensweisheit vor der Schulweisheit geflüchtet.
Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), “Critical Fragments,” § 26

Sense , Time

“Animals cry. At least, they vocalise pain or distress, and perhaps call for help. Most people believe, therefore, that animals can be unhappy and also that they have such feelings as happiness, anger and fear. But there is a tremendous gap between the common sense viewpoint and that of official science on this subject. The ordinary layperson readily believes that his dog, her eat, their parrot or horse, feels. They not only believe it but have constant evidence of it before their eyes. All of us have extraordinary stories of animals we know well. Yet, by dint of rigorous training and great efforts of the mind, most modern scientists — especially those who study the behaviour of animals — have succeeded in becoming almost blind to these matters.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson book When Elephants Weep

Preface, p. 11
When Elephants Weep (1994)

Pain , People , Fear , Dogs

“Our reason tells us that a community based on ideas held in common is a far more advanced manifestation of human life than a community resulting from race or language or geographical location.”

Muhammad Asad book The Principles of State and Government in Islam

Source: The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961), Chapter 6: Conclusion, p 96

Life , Communication , Idea

“Bind not the new statutes so to the common law, that their words increased for the King's advantage, should be deprived of their force.”

Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet (1554–1625) English politician

Lord Hobart's Rep. 341.
Sheffield v. Ratcliffe (1615)

Law

“In November last year, windows and doors opened on that room of the political system in which we were imprisoned for seven or eight years. Some fresh air squeezed into it, through those windows. Serbia woke up from its winter dream, in the midst of winter. Our message to this Parliament is: do not allow yourselves to close those windows, let the fresh air remain common in Serbia, let us include all those who inhaled that fresh air of freedom for eighty eight days together with you, do not close the windows because thus we will shut the windows to Serbia and we will suffocate in such Serbia if its windows remain closed.”

Zoran Đinđić (1952–2003) Serbian politician

From Zoran Djindjic's speech held at Democratic Party's Assembly, 23.05.1997.

Dreams , Freedom , Winter

“Most of the writers I know come from a variety of backgrounds: history, journalism, engineering, physics. The common element here is not what you study, but the fact that you learn how to study, to do research, and to synthesize new ideas out of old. The soul of science fiction, and perhaps even all fiction, is to look at a situation and ask, “what would happen if….” Change some variables and see how that makes people react to the situation. So, getting yourself a good grounding in any field of study will supply you with a great background wealth of material to use to build your stories. Then you really just need to start writing and keep writing. Writing is a skills-based endeavor and there is no easy way to become successful at it. Writers write.”

Michael A. Stackpole (1957) science fiction author

"Interview" at his official website http://www.michaelastackpole.com/?page_id=8

People , Way , Soul , History

“Don't take too seriously all that the neighbors say. Don't be overawed by what the experts say. Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care (1945)

Sense

“Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem, but you sow the seeds for another.
…
One has to try to develop one's inner feelings, which can be done simply by training one's mind. This is a priceless human asset and one you don't have to pay income tax on!
…
First one must change. I first watch myself, check myself, then expect changes from others.
…
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.
…
I myself feel, and also tell other Buddhists that the question of Nirvana will come later.
There is not much hurry.
If in day to day life you lead a good life, honesty, with love,
with compassion, with less selfishness,
then automatically it will lead to Nirvana.
…
The universe that we inhabit and our shared perception of it are the results of a common karma. Likewise, the places that we will experience in future rebirths will be the outcome of the karma that we share with the other beings living there. The actions of each of us, human or nonhuman, have contributed to the world in which we live. We all have a common responsibility for our world and are connected with everything in it.
…
If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue.
…
It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.
…
Whenever Buddhism has taken root in a new land, there has been a certain variation in the style in which it is observed. The Buddha himself taught differently according to the place, the occasion and the situation of those who were listening to him.
…
Samsara - our conditioned existence in the perpetual cycle of habitual tendencies and nirvana - genuine freedom from such an existence- are nothing but different manifestations of a basic continuum. So this continuity of consciousness us always present. This is the meaning of tantra.
…
According to Buddhist practice, there are three stages or steps. The initial stage is to reduce attachment towards life.
The second stage is the elimination of desire and attachment to this samsara. Then in the third stage, self-cherishing is eliminated.
…
The creatures that inhabit this earth-be they human beings or animals-are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world.
…
To develop genuine devotion, you must know the meaning of teachings. The main emphasis in Buddhism is to transform the mind, and this transformation depends upon meditation. in order to meditate correctly, you must have knowledge.
…
Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned.
…
The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
…
From one point of view we can say that we have human bodies and are practicing the Buddha's teachings and are thus much better than insects. But we can also say that insects are innocent and free from guile, where as we often lie and misrepresent ourselves in devious ways in order to achieve our ends or better ourselves. From this perspective, we are much worse than insects.
…
When the days become longer and there is more sunshine, the grass becomes fresh and, consequently, we feel very happy. On the other hand, in autumn, one leaf falls down and another leaf falls down. The beautiful plants become as if dead and we do not feel very happy. Why? I think it is because deep down our human nature likes construction, and does not like destruction. Naturally, every action which is destructive is against human nature. Constructiveness is the human way. Therefore, I think that in terms of basic human feeling, violence is not good. Non-violence is the only way.
…
We humans have existed in our present form for about a hundred thousand years. I believe that if during this time the human mind had been primarily controlled by anger and hatred, our overall population would have decreased. But today, despite all our wars, we find that the human population is greater than ever. This clearly indicates to me that love and compassion predominate in the world. And this is why unpleasant events are "news"; compassionate activities are so much a part of daily life that they are taken for granted and, therefore, largely ignored.
…
The fundamental philosophical principle of Buddhism is that all our suffering comes about as a result of an undisciplined mind, and this untamed mind itself comes about because of ignorance and negative emotions. For the Buddhist practitioner then, regardless of whether he or she follows the approach of the Fundamental Vehicle, Mahayana or Vajrayana, negative emotions are always the true enemy, a factor that has to be overcome and eliminated. And it is only by applying methods for training the mind that these negative emotions can be dispelled and eliminated. This is why in Buddhist writings and teachings we find such an extensive explanation of the mind and its different processes and functions. Since these negative emotions are states of mind, the method or technique for overcoming them must be developed from within. There is no alternative. They cannot be removed by some external technique, like a surgical operation."”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, 2004

Love , Life , War , Lie

“"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."

Feeling , Sense

“"My own people condemned my action (performing Koothu and Kutiyattam outside the precincts of the temples), Once, after I had given performances at Vaikkom, they even thought about excommunicating me. I desired that this art should survive the test of time. That was precisely why I ventured outside the temple"
- Guru about the difficulties he had faced from hardliners when he tok Koothu and Kutiyattam outside the temples and performing it for common man.”

Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) Indian actor

Source: Mani Madhava Chakkyar: The Master at Work, K.N. Panikar, Sangeet Natak Akademi New Delhi, 1994

People , Art , Time

“Organization theory is the branch of sociology that studies organizations as distinct units in society. The organizations examined range from sole proprietorships, hospitals and community-based non-profit organizations to vast global corporations. The field’s domain includes questions of how organizations are structured, how they are linked to other organizations, and how these structures and linkages change over time. Although it has roots in administrative theories, Weber’s theory of bureaucracy, the theory of the firm in microeconomics, and Coase’s theory of firm boundaries, organization theory as a distinct domain of sociology can be traced to the late 1950s and particularly to the work of the Carnegie School. In addition to sociology, organization theory draws on theory in economics, political science and psychology, and the range of questions addressed reflects this disciplinary diversity. While early work focused on specific questions about organizations per se – for instance, why hierarchy is so common, or how businesses set prices – later work increasingly studied organizations and their environments, and ultimately organizations as building blocks of society. Organization theory can thus be seen as a family of mechanisms for analysing social outcomes.”

Gerald F. Davis (1961) American sociologist

Gerald F. Davis (2013). "Organizational theory," in: Jens Beckert & Milan Zafirovski (eds.) International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology, p. 484-488

School , Family , Communication , Question

“In the interest of the dictionaries of the future let me lay down the principle that the Demi-Monde, contrary to the common belief and in spite of what is printed, does not represent the ruck of courtesans, but the class of women that have lost caste.”

Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824–1895) French writer and dramatist, son of the homonym writer and dramatist

Établissons donc ici, pour les dictionnaires à venir, que le Demi-Monde ne représente pas, comme on le croit, comme on l'imprime, la cohue des courtisanes, mais la classe des déclassées.
Preface to Le Demi-Monde (1855), in Théatre complet de Al. Dumas fils (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1868-98) vol. 2, p. 9; translation from Albert D. Vandam Undercurrents of the Second Empire (London: William Heinemann, 1897) p. 246.

Women , Future

“I shall not quarrel with anybody who chooses to give these three factors a different order of importance. That is a matter for individual judgment. But I do believe that these three factors largely represent the advantages which our people have enjoyed, and which have made it possible for them to build here a great, harmonious, liberal, community of free people. Starting anew in a land of almost unlimited natural opportunity, the early settlers found that the success of their nation-building experiments must depend upon their working harmoniously together, sinking non-essential differences, cooperating frankly and sincerely in the general interest, and, above all else, forgetting the ancient antagonisms. It has been our good fortune that we have been able to shake off the old traditions, to strike hands with our neighbor in the common effort to preserve our new-found liberties. And along with this, through our system of universal education, we have been able to guard against the revival of old, or the creation of new regional or group hostilities.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Genius of America (1924)

Hostility , People , Education , Communication

“The common law of England must direct the determination of a common law question. By common-law determinations we are bound; and to them we must always adhere: for, these are the proper constitutional declarations of the law of the land. They are so considered, even by the Court of Chancery itself. When any doubt arises in a cause of equity concerning a point of common law, it is usually referred to the determination of a Court of Common Law.”

Joseph Yates (judge) (1722–1770) English barrister and judge

4 Burr. Part IV., 2377.
Dissenting in Millar v Taylor (1769)

Law , Question

“My objective is that before the end of the millennium Europe should have a true federation. The Commission should become a political executive which can define essential common interests…responsible before the European Parliament and before the nation-states represented how you will, by the European Council or by a second chamber of national parliaments.”

Jacques Delors (1925) French economist and politician

Remarks on French television. (23 January 1990), quoted in Charles Grant, Delors - Inside the House that Jacques Built (London: Nicholas Brearley, 1994), p. 135.

“There webs were spread of more than common size,
And half-starved spiders prey’d on half-starved flies.”

Charles Churchill (satirist) (1731–1764) British poet

The Prophecy of Famine: A Scots Pastoral (1763), line 327

“When I thought of myself as a writer in the 1960s, I questioned what made me go from the left to the right margin, from one page to another. As I thought of the space I was also thinking about time. Then I thought: ‘Why am I limiting myself to a piece of paper when there’s a world out there?’ I focused on performance in the early 1970s because the common language of the time was ‘finding oneself.’ In a time like that, what else could I do but turn in on myself and then go from me to you? Photography, film, and video were sidesteps–spaces in front of you–whereas I was more interested in the space where you were in the middle. Now I’m involved with peopled spaces–that’s design and architecture.”

Vito Acconci (1940–2017) Designer, landscape architect, performance and installation artist

Vito Acconci interview, in The Art Newspaper, Art Basel edition, December 5, 2012.

People , World , Question , Thinking

“An honest, bold, loyal, and within its limits extremely highbrow attempt to produce through common ownership a society of the Free and Equal, produced a tyrant and a totalitarian state;…”

Max Eastman (1883–1969) American activist

Source: Reflections on the Failure of Socialism (1955), p. 110

“I may not here omit those two main plagues and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together.”

Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy

Section 2, member 3, subsection 13, Love of Gaming, &c. and pleasures immoderate; Causes.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part I

Women , People , Wine

“It is a common error to imagine that to be stirring and voluble in a worthy cause is to be good and to do good.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 274

Error , Imagination

“It is a common fallacy to believe that the law of large numbers acts as a force endowed with memory seeking to return to the original state, and many wrong conclusions have been drawn from this assumption.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter V, Conditional Probability, Stochastic Independence, p. 136.

Law , Memory

“In like manner the Reverend Dr. William A. Smith, President of the Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, in his work upon the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery, deliberately repudiates Mr. Jefferson's view of slavery as a 'grossly offensive error', and attributes the anti-slavery movement to him – which is as wise as to attribute the motion of the earth to Galileo. Judge Wayne, in his late charge at Savannah upon the law against the slave-trade, confirms Mr. Stephens's statement. And, as if to establish it by the most unexpected testimony, Mr. Edward Everett, in his late discourse upon Daniel Webster, said, 'In common with all, or nearly all, the statesmen of the last generation, he believed that free labor would ultimately prevail throughout the continent.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Law , Error

“Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile. It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart. And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul. This is real religion. This is real worship.”

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

What Is Religion? (1899) is Ingersoll's last public address, delivered before the American Free Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899. Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Dresden Memorial Edition Volume IV, pages 477-508, edited by Cliff Walker. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/ingwhatrel.htm

Life , God , World , Fear

“This dictate of common sense.”

Jonathan Edwards book The Freedom of the Will

The Freedom of the Will (1754).

Sense

“[R]acial difference and ethnic pride are no longer just fossilized notions from the 1960s; they are growing fissures in the American mosaic that now threaten to split the country apart — fueling the suspicion of less liberal and more homogeneous nations that the great American experiment will finally unwind as expected. That would be a great tragedy, but a catastrophe entirely predictable if citizens seek symbolic solidarity with their tribe rather than in the common idea of just being American.”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, America: One Nation, Indivisible (2015)

Idea , Country

“America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.”

Ayn Rand book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966)

Men , People , Way , Suffering

“Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.”

An Wang (1920–1990) American businessman

Lessons : An Autobiography (1986)

Sense , Success

“Hitler's native district in the Waldviertel, is a hilly, wooded country of peasant villages and small farms, and though only some fifty miles from Vienna it has a somewhat remote and impoverished air, as if the main currents of Austrian life had passed it by. The inhabitants tend to be dour, like the Czech peasants to the north of them. Intermarriage is common, as in the case of Hitler's parents, and illegitimacy is frequent.”

William L. Shirer book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Source: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), pp. 6,7

Life , Parent , Country

“Response to poor voting record in the House of Commons "I am in the House of Commons every day; I just do not want to vote for Tweedledum or Tweedledee"”

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

Source: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm130416/debtext/130416-0005.htm#130416-0005.htm_spnew8

Housing

“What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual for his own and the common good; the development of the individual through liberty, and the attainment of the common good through democracy and social justice.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

“True Americanism” (1915).
Extra-judicial writings

Justice , Democracy

“You have to focus on your dreams, even if they go beyond common sense. How could this young girl from the suburbs of Detroit become a success in New York? It was always that dream.”

Anna Sui (1964) American fashion designer

via MBFashionWeek.com. IMG Worldwide. 2015. http://mbfashionweek.com/designers/anna-sui

Dreams , Girl , Sense , Success

“But whatever its defects, the classification of Linnæus was the first attempt at grouping animals together according to certain common structural characters.”

Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) Swiss naturalist

Methods of Study in Natural History (1863), ch. 1, p. 7 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015065771407;view=1up;seq=21

Animals

“It is traditional in the theory of the firm to define the production opportunity set available to the firm in terms of its boundary -- the maximum attainable set of output quantities for various input quantities, given the state of technology and knowledge. This boundary is the production function of the firm. One of our purposes here is to point out the dependence of such production functions on the structure of property rights and contracting rights within which the firm exists. We redefine the production function in order to recognize the dependence of output on the structure of property and contracting rights. That expanded framework is then used to discuss a concrete set of problems surrounding the role of labor in the firm ranging from the 'labor-managed firm' system (in which tradable capital value residual claims [common stock] are legally prohibited), and the codetermination and industrial democracy movements (in which management participation by labor is required by law), to cooperatives and professional partnerships (i. e., quasi-labor-managed firms which arise out of the voluntary contracting process), and the capitalist corporation.”

Michael Jensen (1939) American economist

Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling. "Rights and production functions: An application to labor-managed firms and codetermination." Journal of business (1979): 469-506.

Law , Democracy , Knowledge , Problem

“These experiences are not 'religious' in the ordinary sense. They are natural, and can be studied naturally. They are not 'ineffable' in the sense the sense of incommunicable by language. Maslow also came to believe that they are far commoner than one might expect, that many people tend to suppress them, to ignore them, and certain people seem actually afraid of them, as if they were somehow feminine, illogical, dangerous. 'One sees such attitudes more often in engineers, in mathematicians, in analytic philosophers, in book keepers and accountants, and generally in obsessional people'. The peak experience tends to be a kind of bubbling-over of delight, a moment of pure happiness. 'For instance, a young mother scurrying around her kitchen and getting breakfast for her husband and young children. The sun was streaming in, the children clean and nicely dressed, were chattering as they ate. The husband was casually playing with the children: but as she looked at them she was suddenly so overwhelmed with their beauty and her great love for them, and her feeling of good fortune, that she went into a peak experience…”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: New Pathways In Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revolution (1972), p. 17

Love , Children , People , Books

Quotes about common page 29

Quotes about common
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