The Art of Common Sense

Common sense is a personal compass for guidance around the rocks and shoals of life.

Common sense is not based on theory; it is not a hypothesis. It is life acted out, it is discoveries made in the crucible of existence. It is the tried and tested experiences of humankind.

Common sense sits in judgment on the centuries, on every science, every religion, every art, every government. It is based on what has been proved true, sound and practical.

Common sense is the voice of the ages. It is the distilled essence of what people have learned about life as expressed in the proverbs and maxims of all nations. "That person is happy who lives on his or her own labor," observed the Egyptian. "Just scale and full measure injure no person," recorded the Chinese. "Examine what is said and not who speaks," said the Arabian. "An idle brain is the devil's workshop," wrote the English. . . .

Common sense is pragmatic. It is what William James called "the cash value of an idea." It is a method that works, a truth that can be applied.

Common sense is the common denominator of intelligence, the key to right answers.

Common sense recognizes the utter senselessness of war, the irrationality of using death, suffering and destruction as a way of settling disputes.

Common sense observes that crime does not pay, that murder will be found out, that the law of compensation works relentlessly and cannot be escaped.

Common sense is the rock on which every enduring institution and organization must be built.

Common sense is the law of God written into the nature of the universe. It is the sum total of the workable findings of people in their long evolution toward the light.

Common sense is dynamic, not static. It changes as time goes on.

The art of common sense is applying the best wisdom we know today based on all our yesterdays.

Quotations

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without
education than to have education without common sense.
Robert Green Ingersoll

To act with common sense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy, to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot, bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it, whatever it is, and despise affectation.
Horatio Walpole

Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
W. Somerset Maugham

Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction.
Thomas Jefferson

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
the Buddha

Common sense is as rare as genius,--is the basis of genius.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at
different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
William James

Common sense has given to words their ordinary signification,
and common sense is the genius of humankind.
Francois Pierre Guizot

Common sense, alas in spite of our educational institutions,
is a rare commodity.
Christian Nestell Bovee

If common sense has not the brilliancy of the sun, it has
the fixity of the stars.
Fernan Caballero

Everybody gets so much information all day long
that they lose their common sense.
Gertrude Stein

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is Genius.
George Bernard Shaw

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are,
and doing things as they ought to be done.
Harriet Beecher Stowe

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without
education than to have education without common sense.
Robert Green Ingersoll

Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education.
Victor Hugo

There is nothing more uncommon than common sense.
Frank Lloyd Wright

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
Emerson

The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are first,
hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.
Thomas Alva Edison

Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.
An Wang