Quotes about common
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“Let us create extraordinary words, on condition that they be put to the most ordinary use and that the entity they designate be made to exist in the same way as the most common object.”

Gilles Deleuze book Dialogues

Source: Dialogues

Way

“Genius is an exceedingly common human quality, probably natural to most of us.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Nature

“It seems an insult to the night to speak of purpose and intent, when this common moment is so brimming full of blessed design tranquility. All things follow their course.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Source: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

Night

“It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar.”

Edward Said (1935–2003) Professor of English and literature

People, Change

“Diseases of the mind are more common and more pernicious than diseases of the body.”
Morbi perniciosiores pluresque sunt animi quam corporis.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book III, Chapter III
Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC)

Disease

“One should use common words to say uncommon things”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

Way

“I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise.”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Variant: No, thank you, I don't mind the rain,' I said. I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise.
Source: Agnes Grey

Sense

“When I tell people I went to library school, the most common reaction is either “You’re joking, right?” or “They have schools for librarians? Do they teach you how to properly sssh people?”

Scott Douglas (1963) American wheelchair tennis player

People, School

“For a moment the two of them looked at each other, wordless, as if they were asleep and their dreams had converged on common ground, a place where sound was alien.”

Roberto Bolaño book 2666

Source: 2666

Dreams

“Marrying a woman for her beauty makes no more sense than eating a bird for its singing. But it's a common mistake nonetheless.”

Charles Frazier book Cold Mountain

Source: Cold Mountain

Beauty, Bird, Sense, Singing

“Irony is Fate's most common figure of speech.”

Trevanian book Shibumi

Source: Shibumi

Fate

“You must remember that the common criminal will always join the armed forces for, if nothing else, regular meals and expert training in the use of guns.”

Warren Ellis book Aetheric Mechanics

Source: Aetheric Mechanics

Training

“Yes," said Will, "you two don't seem to have much in common, save for a penchant for demon women and evil.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Women, Evil

“TEAMWORK: the fuel that allows common people attain uncommon results.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) American businessman and philanthropist

People, For Team

“Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Source: The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

“Sex had been amazing, but it wasn't a magical cure for everything. Damn. Somewhere along the way, I'd picked up common sense.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Sex, Way, Sense

“That proves you are unusual," returned the Scarecrow; "and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

People, World, Tree

“I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Source: Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, New Society Publishers (2013) p. xxii

Women, Men, Education, Thinking

“Very well,” Beatrix said reluctantly. “But I warn you, they may be resistant to the match.”
“I’m resistant to the match,” Christopher informed her. “At least we’ll have that in common.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Love in the Afternoon

“I can honestly say that my misery had been transformed into common unhappiness, so by Freud's definition I have achieved mental health.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

Health

“… she opened the door very slowly and carefully, half hiding behind it, as if badly frightened of what might be waiting for her on the other side. And considering that it was me waiting, this showed rare common sense.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Sense, Waiting

“There is nothing more uncommon than common sense.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

Anonymous saying, dating back at least to its citation in Natural Theology (1836) by Thomas Chalmers, Bk. II, Ch. III : On the Strength of the Evidences for a God in the Phenomena of Visible and External Nature, § 15, where the author states: "It has been said that there is nothing more uncommon than common sense."; it has since become misattributed to particular people, including Frank Lloyd Wright.
Misattributed

Sense

“No man is an island,' said John Donne. I feel we are all islands -- in a common sea.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Source: Gift from the Sea

Feeling, Sea

“Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Faith

“Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

World, Sense

“He repeated until his dying day that there was no one with more common sense, no stone cutter more obstinate, no manager more lucid or dangerous, than a poet.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Sense

“Excellence is doing a common thing in an uncommon way.”

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

Way

“There are many sources of spirituality; religion may be the most common, but it is by no means the only. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades.”

Michael Shermer (1954) American science writer

Religion, Sense, Science

“it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than thesquarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings; mostpeople are snobs.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Reflections on the Atom Bomb (1946)

Sense

“A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Sense, Dance, Funny

“… reality, the name we give to the common experience.”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Reality

“Sense is never common.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Source: Time Enough for Love

Sense

“Destiny is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Home

“I disobeyed Ra's wishes, and so he ordered my onw father, Shu-"
"Hang on," I said. "Shoe?"
"S-h-u," she said. "The god of the wind."
"On." I wished these gods had names that wearn't common household objects. "Go on, please.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

God, Shoe

“There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious — painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour — but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Robert Walton in "Letter 2"
Source: Frankenstein (1818)

Love, Men, Soul, Understanding

“Artistic talent is far more common than the talent toartistic talent. Any parent with a hard hand can crush it, but to nurture it is much more difficult.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

Parent

“if we could act a little more according to common sense, and a good deal less according to fashion, we should find many things work easier;”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: Black Beauty

Fashion, Sense

“We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot.”

Abraham Verghese book Cutting for Stone

Source: Cutting for Stone

Life, Death, Forgetting

“Cats cant speak, that's common sense.
-Yoruichi”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Cats, Sense

“It is a common sentence that knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down.”

George Eliot book Daniel Deronda

Source: Daniel Deronda

Knowledge

“You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.”

Lionel Shriver book We Need to Talk About Kevin

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Heart

“Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

“Common is overrated.”

Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young

Source: Only the Good Spy Young

“All the emotions have something in common. People are quite aware of the sorrow there always is in lust, but they are not so aware of the lust there is in sorrow.”

Graham Greene The Tenth Man

Source: The Tenth Man

People

“And as every spy knows, common enemies are how allies always begin.”

Ally Carter book Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

“It's always hard when you've known a person a long time and then you have to recognise that you have nothing left in common but your memories.”

Eva Heller book Beim nächsten Mann wird alles anders

Source: Beim nächsten Mann wird alles anders

Memory, Time, Personality

“I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Source: The 39 Steps

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Pain, Beauty, Birth, Heart

“Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Ballads and Other Poems

Source: Ballads and Other Poems

Life, Fate, Sadness, Sun

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Despair

“She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "nothing" I walked in a gray world of nothing.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

World, Personality

“Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Dreams, Reality, Sense

“I cannot hate them because nothing binds me to them; I have nothing in common with them.”

Milan Kundera book Immortality

Source: Immortality

Hate

“… if gold rust, what then will iron do?/ For if a priest be foul in whom we trust/ No wonder that a common man should rust….”

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) English poet

“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Source: Literary Remains, Vol. 1

Wisdom, World, Sense

“A common defect of modern art study is that too many students do not know why they draw.”

Robert Henri (1865–1929) American painter

Art, Study, Drawing

“She thought: at this moment, the glass stem between his fingers feels just like the one between mine. We have this much in common.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Feeling

“I don't profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Sense

“The only thing they had in common was Calypso, and every time Leo thought about that he wanted to punch Percy in the face.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Time

“We spent all those years talking about stuff we had in common, and the last few months noticing all the ways we were different and it broke both of our hearts.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

Way, Heart

“There is a common emotion we all recognize and have not yet named—the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt.”

Thomas Harris book Hannibal

Source: Hannibal

Happiness, Feeling

“I mean, what do people talk about when they're married?" "Their kids, I guess." "Maybe that's all they have in common.”

Rita Mae Brown book Rubyfruit Jungle

Source: Rubyfruit Jungle

People

“The secret to success is to do the common things uncommonly well.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

Secret, Success, Success, Life

“Thomas was an annoying wiseass who tended to make everyone he met want to kill him, and when I have that much in common with someone, I can't help but like him a little.”

Jim Butcher book Blood Rites

Source: Blood Rites

Help

“The elegance is as physical, as moral quality that has nothing common with the clothing. You can see a countrywoman more elegant than one so called elegant woman.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

Clothes

“There is no equality. The only thing people all have in common is that they are all going to die.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

People

“Life is not so idiotically mathematical that only the big eat the small; it is just as common for a bee to kill a lion or at least to drive it mad.”

August Strindberg Miss Julie

Source: Miss Julie

Life, Mathematics, Bee, Madness

“These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

"The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements" http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/addams6.htm; this piece by Jane Addams was first published in 1892 and later appeared as chapter six of Twenty Years at Hull House (1910) <br class="br">Context: These young people accomplish little toward the solution of this social problem, and bear the brunt of being cultivated into unnourished, oversensitive lives. They have been shut off from the common labor by which they live which is a great source of moral and physical health. They feel a fatal want of harmony between their theory and their lives, a lack of coördination between thought and action. I think it is hard for us to realize how seriously many of them are taking to the notion of human brotherhood, how eagerly they long to give tangible expression to the democratic ideal. These young men and women, longing to socialize their democracy, are animated by certain hopes which may be thus loosely formulated; that if in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave; that it is difficult to see how the notion of a higher civic life can be fostered save through common intercourse; that the blessings which we associate with a life of refinement and cultivation can be made universal and must be made universal if they are to be permanent; that the good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain, is floating in mid-air, until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.

Life, Women, Men, People