Common Saying Quotes & Sayings

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor - by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.
"He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.
"The story is this man's adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in. — Raymond Chandler

There's a common saying that everybody deep at heart loves their mother, except sometimes we decide our actual mothers don't measure up. And so we look for a replacement. — Peter Sagal

"Are We There Yet?" was the perfect title, because it's such a common saying. And having made the movie with the same name kinda locks it all in. — Ice Cube

The common approach is, metaphorically speaking, to go out onto the sidewalk and to pick up all the banana skins, so that no one slips. Me, I go down early in the morning and drop more banana skins. People say, 'Well, why would you be doing that?' And I tell them, 'Teaching is not about trying to prevent people from falling down, it's about trying to get them to use their eyes.' If you take the banana skins away, you're saying that life is banana-skin free. Well, it is not. Life is full of banana skins.
I try to teach people to use their eyes, to look where they're stepping. It's my responsibility to respect people, to help them learn the lessons life teaches. When you slip on a banana skin and fall down, discuss what happened and learn from it. I think that it is actually unwise to get in between people and what life is trying to teach them, but we all have a responsibility for each other. — Johann Christoph Arnold

He knew he should have counted. It was the rule to count to ten in his head before he opened his mouth. It was the rule to count to ten if he wanted to smash a man in the face for saying something he didn't like. It was the rule to count to ten if instinct wasn't needed, but common sense was. — Melina Marchetta

Folly is the only thing that keeps youth at a stay and old age afar off;" as it is verified in the Brabanders, of whom there goes this common saying, "That age, which is wont to render other men wiser, makes them the greater fools. — Erasmus

I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even as you are reading you feel it and as you read you keep feeling it and though it be my story it will be common, though it be singular it will be known to you so that by the end you will think - no, you will realize - that it was all the while yourself arranging the words, that it was all the time words that you yourself, out of your heart had been saying. — Mary Oliver

Harry was a hero in the Gryffindor common room that night. Daringly, Fred and George had put an Enlargement Charm on the front cover of The Quibbler and hung it on the wall, so that Harry's giant head gazed down upon the proceedings, occasionally saying things like 'THE MINISTRY ARE MORONS' and 'EAT DUNG, UMBRIDGE' in a booming voice. — J.K. Rowling

Then I will tell you!" cried little Aglaia, springing lightly high into the air, and descending gently on a huge shell at her feet; "She likes every thing she does, and she likes to be always doing something. You can't put the meaning into one word, as you can Beauty and Riches; but still itis something. Can't you think of some way of saying what I have told you? Dear me, how stupid you are all grown. And liking isn't the right word: it is something stronger than common liking." "Love, perhaps," murmured Leila. — Mrs. Alfred Gatty

The most common misconception about privacy is that it's about having something to hide. "If you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide," the saying goes, with the obvious implication that privacy only aids wrongdoers. — Bruce Schneier

More people saying what they believe would be a great improvement. Because I often do I am unfit for common intercourse.-Nero Wolfe in Blood Will Tell — Rex Stout

But common sense comes too late, because Logan is now moving away from the counter and marching in my direction.

"Hey, gorgeous." He slides in the seat across from me and places a chocolate-chip muffin on the table. "I got you a muffin."

Damn it, I guess he'd noticed me right when he'd walked in.

"Why?" I ask in suspicion, and without saying hi.

"'Cause I wanted to get you something, and you already have coffee. Ergo, muffin."

I raise one eyebrow. "Are you trying to buy your way into my good graces?"

"Yup. And excellent pun, by the way."

"I wasn't punning. My name just happens to be a homonym."

His blue eyes gleam as he downright smolders at me. "I love it when you talk homonyms to me."

"Uh-huh. — Elle Kennedy

Durkon: You're only saying that because you don't want the world to end.

Roy: Of course I'm only saying that because I don't want the world to end. This is not an otherwise common topic of conversation . — Rich Burlew

Another reason we know that language could not determine thought is that when a language isn't up to the conceptual demands of its speakers, they don't scratch their heads dumbfounded (at least not for long); they simply change the language. They stretch it with metaphors and metonyms, borrow words and phrases from other languages, or coin new slang and jargon. (When you think about it, how else could it be? If people had trouble thinking without language, where would their language have come from-a committee of Martians?) Unstoppable change is the great given in linguistics, which is not why linguists roll their eyes at common claims such as that German is the optimal language of science, that only French allows for truly logical expression, and that indigenous languages are not appropriate for the modern world. As Ray Harlow put it, it's like saying, Computers were not discussed in Old English; therefore computers cannot be discussed in Modern English. — Steven Pinker

The biblical authors wrote of God's sovereignty over His world, and of man's experiences within that world, using such modes of speech about the natural order and human experience as were current in their days, and in a language that was common to themselves and their contemporaries. This is saying no more than that they wrote to be understood. Their picture of the world and things in it is not put forward as normative for later science, andy more than their use of Hebrew and Greek is put forward as a perfect model for composition in these languages. — J.I. Packer

dream with the little devils for dream with the little angels', a common saying in Spanish. I instantly — Nina Lautner

It may be expecting too much to expect most intellectuals to have common sense, when their whole life is based on their being uncommon
that is, saying things that are different from what everyone else is saying. There is only so much genuine originality in anyone. After that, being uncommon means indulging in pointless eccentricities or clever attempts to mock or shock. — Thomas Sowell

It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular; it is why he does it. The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act. All he does is good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For such a man, living itself will be sacramental and the whole world a sanctuary. His entire life will be a priestly ministration. As he performs his never-so-simple task, he will hear the voice of the seraphim saying, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of the hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. — A.W. Tozer

Here was someone who had dismissed most of what I had just been saying as too obvious to even discuss; yet apparently it wasn't obvious enough. I realized that he was the living embodiment of one of the greatest paradoxes of human behavior:

Common sense is not common action. — Shawn Achor

I don't think that I could ever be a strict dad. I never grew up with anybody strict in my life ... I'm not saying I'm a role model by any means or anything. I think the fact that I wasn't told what not to do all the time - my spirit kind of told me things that I shouldn't - I got to develop on my own. It's part of your common sense. — Randy Houser

Wonder knows that while you cannot look at the light, you cannot look at anything else without it. It is not exhausted by childhood, but finds its key there. It is a journey like a walk through the woods over the usual obstacles and around the common distractions while the voice of direction leads, saying, 'This is the way, walk ye in it.' — Ravi Zacharias

I simply care nothing for any of your religions, as all three are fundamentally flawed, unlike the Church of Common Sense, right from the start! They call God he instead of she and all three would like to burn me at the stake for saying that! — Roseanne Barr

When it was first said that the sun stood still and world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei [the voice of the people is the voice of God], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. — Charles Darwin

There's a saying that goes something like: 'We are all one drink or pill away from addiction,' and I know this is meant to destigmatize what addicts go through, but I feel like I've been seeing variations on this 'common knowledge' more and more lately being used (on social media) as a cudgel to remind patients to not overdo it," Anna says, speaking to the dual-edged sword of awareness. A motto designed to humanize the experience of addiction has been turned into a weapon that targets people who rely on opioids for pain management, and that translates to real-world stigma. — S. E. Smith

Be yourself one hundred and one thousand percent. Everybody man, from the sides to the back to the middle to the sides, you might not even know people, but if you rock with Lil B music and respect me from the core, you should know that based means you have someone you can trust, because we all have a common courtesy. It's about having empathy now. What I mean is really caring and paying attention to somebody else's feeling. You gotta have empathy and know we all on this common vibe. It's all peace. It's saying, hey, you know what, you can hit me and I'm not hitting you back. And that takes a very big person to do that. — Brandon McCartney

It is a common saying that many pecks of salt must be eaten before the duties of friendship can be discharged.
[Lat., Vulgo dicitur multos modios salis simul edendos esse, ut amicitia munus expletum sit.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatic. The man who knows nothing thinks he is teaching others what he has just learned himself; the man who knows a great deal can't imagine that what he is saying is not common knowledge, and speaks more indifferently. — Jean De La Bruyere

It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn. — Plato

The Russians are going to be expansionist whether we [USA] provoke them to it or not. Russians keep saying that we're trying to encircle them. In what sense does the independence of Kosovo, a land-locked province, former Yugoslavia, with no common border with Russia, threaten Russia with encirclement? This is insulting. In what sense does the independence of Georgia constitute an encirclement? What we are facing, and we may as well give it its right name, is what I called it earlier, a chauvinistic, theocratic in part, xenophobic Russian imperialism. — Christopher Hitchens

So long as you believe yourself to be 'only human' you have accepted life in a prison cell whose door remains locked only by your own mind.
By saying, 'well, I'm only human', you have blindly submitted to all the limitations, fears, pettiness, greed and hatreds which make the common person weak and fragile.
Most never become aware that another way is possible.
You are human, but much more, too.
The much-moreness is the vast, brilliant freedom and power which has confined itself in your humanity.
If you are willing (and not everyone is, which is also a perfectly valid choice), you can begin to explore your native powers and experience freedom within limitation. When you do this, you live fully while you are here and you are no longer afraid to die.
When you are not afraid of death but seek to live in a state of always-discovering, this is when life is transformed and you accept your birthright to choose and create in extraordinary fashion. — Jacob Nordby

For about four years, I've been telling people I hate sour cream. One time I sent back nachos because they had sour cream on them. I started saying this because a friend I admire hates sour cream. I told him I hated it too so we could have a funny thing in common. — Megan Boyle

Miscarrying is a horrible painful event. That just felt like something that needed to be addressed. I am by no means prescribing how people grieve. I am just saying it's painful, it's not your fault and it's so common. Well if it's so common - let's talk about it and open a dialogue where people know what to say to you. — Laura Benanti

and when Mrs Thatcher came to the college for a scientific symposium Tyson was deputed to take her round the Common Room. This is hung with portraits and photographs of dead fellows, including one of the economist G. D. H. Cole. Tyson planned to take Mrs Thatcher up to it saying, 'And this, Prime Minister, is a former fellow, G. D. H. Dole.' Whereupon, with luck, Mrs Thatcher would have had to say, 'Cole not Dole.' In the event he did take her round but lost his nerve. — Alan Bennett

It was a common saying among the Christians in the primitive Church, "The soul and the body make a man; the spirit and discipline make a Christian;" implying, that none could be real Christians, without the help of Christian discipline. But if this be so, is it any wonder that we find so few Christians; for where is Christian discipline — John Wesley

Saying no isn't easy, but it's a required skill if you wish to have any degree of focus in your life. If you say yes too often, you'll likely fall into the common trap of saying yes to the good while simultaneously saying no to the best. — Steve Pavlina

If we are saved and sanctified God guides us by our ordinary choices, and if we are going to choose what He does not want, He will check, and we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, stop at once. Never reason it out and say - "I wonder why I shouldn't?" God instructs us in what we choose, that is, He guides our common sense, and we no longer hinder His Spirit by continually saying - "Now, Lord, what is Thy will? — Oswald Chambers

I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny? — Socrates

I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and out of all of this I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can. I shall not speak much for fear of saying foolish things; I will risk still less for fear of doing them, for I am not disposed to abuse the confidence which they have deigned to show me. Such is the conduct which until now I have followed and will follow. — Marquis De Lafayette

The best I can tell you in that way is that I'm much more at ease with fellow-Catholics than I am with heathens or Protestants. One has so many basic assumptions in common that there's so much that doesn't need saying, and when you're talking to even the most amusing and intelligent heathen you suddenly find that something you've said has no meaning at all to them. — Evelyn Waugh

LAW 4
Always Say Less Than Necessary
When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish. — Robert Greene

I was having trouble making sense of all that Rosie was saying, doubtless due to the effects of the alcohol and her perfume. However, she had given me an opportunity to keep the conversation on safe ground. The inheritance of common genetically influenced traits such as eye colour is more complex than is generally understood, and I was confident that I could speak on the topic for long enough to occupy the remainder of our journey. But I realised that this was a defensive action and impolite to Rosie who had risked considerable embarrassment and damage to her relationship with Stefan for my benefit. — Graeme Simsion

But as it turned out, the two had a great deal in common, for both Bailey and Thackeray (named for the famous novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, author of Vanity Fair) were devoted bibliophiles who believed that "a book a day kept the world at bay," as Thackeray was fond of saying. Bailey was the offspring of a generation of badgers who insisted that "Reader" was the most rewarding vocation to which a virtuous badger might be called and who gauged their week's anticipated pleasure by the height of their to-be-read pile. (Perhaps you know people like this. I do.) — Susan Wittig Albert

Each of these "houses of hope" had their own unique "ingredients" based on their inheritance, but I also saw some common ingredients that were shared by all: ... In conclusion, the Lord is saying, "Because of what has been loosed on the earth, angels are ascending and descending, as well as demons. My people must run into the house of hope! The river will take you there! This is not a fearful thing. Respond!" I am hearing the Lord giving this call to the nations. Don't be like Reuben in Judges 5, who couldn't decide, Do I go, do I stay? The Lord is shouting, "Run into that house of hope!" — Bob Hartley

Don't waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people - unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You'll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they're saying, and what they're thinking, and what they're up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind. — Marcus Aurelius

These young men, in other words, represented a variety of types, but one thing they had in common was that they'd all given up on committing positively to anything in life. This was not their fault, however. The blame lay with a certain ubiquitous spirit of the times, transmitted to them by their respective mothers. And perhaps it goes without saying that this "spirit of the times" was in fact an oppressive value system based primarily upon the absolute certainty that nothing in this world was ever going to change. — Ryu Murakami

If we don't plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don't have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don't have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind. — Maya Angelou

The Special Operations Network was instigated to handle policing duties considered either too unusual or too specialized to be tackled by the regular force. There were thirty departments in all, starting at the more mundane Neighborly Disputes (SO-30) and going onto Literary Detectives (SO-27) and Art Crime (SO-24). Anything below SO-20 was restricted information, although it was common knowledge that the ChronoGuard was SO-12 and Antiterrorism SO-9. It is rumored that SO-1 was the department that polices the SpecOps themselves. Quite what the others do is anyone's guess. What is known is that the individual operatives themselves are mostly ex-military or ex-police and slightly unbalanced. 'If you want to be a SpecOp,' the saying goes, 'act kinda weird ... — Jasper Fforde

It would have been better to do what everyone else does, neither taking life too seriously nor seeing it as merely grotesque, choosing a profession and practicing it, grabbing one's share of the common cake, eating it and saying, "It's delicious!" rather than following the gloomy path that I have trodden all alone; then I wouldn't be here writing this, or at least it would have been a different story. The further I proceed with it, the more confused it seems even to me, like hazy prospects seen from too far away, since everything passes, even the memory of our most scalding tears and our heartiest laughter; our eyes soon dry, our mouths resume their habitual shape; the only memory that remains to me is that of a long tedious time that lasted for several winters, spent in yawning and wishing I were dead — Gustave Flaubert

And for some reason she held the sentence suspended without meaning in her mind's ear, " ... quite enough for everybody at present," she repeated. After all the foreign languages she had been hearing, it sounded to her pure English. What a lovely language, she thought, saying over to herself again the common place words ... — Virginia Woolf

Supposedly troubled that women would no longer be treated as property, these man saw the hujum as another kind of expropriation, much like the land and water redistribution. One was quoted as saying that unveiling was merely an extension of Soviet land reform, since it aimed to seize the second, third, and fourth wives of bois and transfer them to the poor landless peasants who had to hire themselves out as field hands. (This was a common view, as many Uzbeks also saw the hujum as transferring women from male control to that of the state.) — Douglas Northrop

If we all say the same thing, then I think the government has to listen. But because no one is saying it, I become singled out, even though what I'm saying is common sense. It's very essential values that we all have to protect. But in Chinese society, people are giving up on protecting these values. — Ai Weiwei

Protecting ourselves from loss rather than grieving and healing our losses is one of the major causes of burnout. Very few of the professionals I have treated for burnout actually came in saying that they were burned out. I don't think most of them knew. The most common thing I've been told is, 'There's something wrong with me. I don't care anymore. Terrible things happen in front of me and I feel nothing. — Rachel Naomi Remen

Ay, I know she's asked for credit at several places, saying her husband laid hands on every farthing he could get for drink. But th' undertakers urge her on, you see, and tell her this thing's usual, and that thing's only a common mark of respect, and that everybody has t'other thing, till the poor woman has no will o' her own. I dare say, too, her heart strikes her (it always does when a person's gone) for many a word and many a slighting deed to him who's stiff and cold; and she thinks to make up matters, as it were, by a grand funeral, though she and all her children, too, may have to pinch many a year to pay the expenses, if ever they pay them at all. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Look at all the misery in the Middle East, for example. All these countries have Islam in common, and far too few dare to criticize Islam as an ideology, and what it's doing to these countries. I know I might get punched in the face for saying these things, but my conviction is that less religion in the world would be better. — Bjorn Ulvaeus

Many of you are well enough off that the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. — Hillary Clinton

A man who says that no patriot should attack the [war] until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it. But there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men ... he is the uncandid candid friend; the man who says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at all ... Granted that he states only facts, it is still essential to know what are his emotions, what is his motive. It may be that twelve hundred men in Tottenham are down with smallpox; but we want to know whether this is stated by some great philosopher who wants to curse the gods, or only by some common clergyman who wants to help the men. — G.K. Chesterton

For common minds have an ugly ability to perceive in the deepest and richest saying nothing but their own everyday opinion. — Jean-Paul Sartre

Requests for mustache rides were the big common theme, around the time of the release of the season. People were saying how much they hated him, obviously, and how they would kill him or choke him. There were just all kinds of things. You name it, I got it. — Pablo Schreiber

We cannot avoid the globalization of knowledge and information. When I was a boy growing up in Kansas, I could never think about a Buddhist, or a Hindu, or Muslim, or even a Protestant - I grew up in such a Catholic ghetto. That's not possible anymore, unless you live in a cave or something. So either we have knowledge of what the other religions and other denominations are saying, and how they tie into the common thread, or we end up just being dangerously ignorant of other people and therefore prejudiced. — Richard Rohr

In India there is a common saying that the way to Swaraj is through Mandalay. — Mahatma Gandhi

God pity us indeed, for we are human,And do not always seeThe vision when it comes, the shining change,Or, if we see it, do not follow it,Because it is too hard, too strange, too new,Too unbelievable, too difficult,Warring too much with common, easy ways,And now I know this, standing in this light,Who have been half alive these many years,Brooding on my own sorrow, my own pain,Saying I am a barren bough. ExpectNor fruit nor blossom from a barren bough. — Stephen Vincent Benet

If you are afraid to fail, your successes will be few, common, and unmemorable. — Lorii Myers

A common denominator in every single nuclear accident - a nuclear plant or on a nuclear submarine - is that before the specialists even know what has happened, they rush to the media saying, 'There's no danger to the public.' They do this before they themselves know what has happened because they are terrified that the public might react violently, either by panic or by revolt. — Jacques-Yves Cousteau

the common saying has it, we think that man "lives to eat" and not "eats to live". We are continually making this mistake; we are regarding nature as ourselves and are becoming attached to it; and as soon as this attachment comes, there is the deep impression on the soul, which binds us down and makes us work not from freedom but like slaves. — Swami Vivekananda

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles ... There cannot be much doubt that the whole thing is bound up with the rise of nationalism - that is, with the lunatic modern habit of identifying oneself with large power units and seeing everything in terms of competitive prestige. — George Orwell

You must understand something, George. The world's leaders create catastrophes and resolve them
all at their own whimsy
every single day. It is how the world runs. Lacking anything else to believe in, common people need to believe in their leaders' abilities to save them. It's true! Their emotional well-being
and yes, their fate
depends on the intelligence and skill of those who manipulate the days' disasters. And it should go without saying that the one who succeeds in taking the reins of leadership
by whatever means
is the most intelligent and skillful, and therefore most qualified to lead. — Trenton Lee Stewart

There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of Seneca, "That drunkenness does not produce but discover faults." Common experience teaches the contrary. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses dualities into the mind which she is a stranger to in her sober moments. — Joseph Addison

How's it going today, Riot?" I said. "I'm Gideon."

Nice. Two sentences and I'd already managed to embarrass myself. In front of Daryn and a horse. I hadn't even realized the last part was possible. I continued speaking as I stepped closer. "I'm sure we have a lot in common. You're clearly a stallion in top physical condition. Extremely dangerous. Badass. Impressive looking."

"Wow," Daryn said behind me.

That made me smile, which I needed. I was nervous as all get-out. The muscles in Riot's legs were twitching. His breath lifted in puffs of steam. He had gold eyes - and they hadn't unlocked from mine. He looked like he wanted to eat my head.

"Keep going," Daryn said. "And maybe try to be positive and nice? I think he can sense what you're saying."

Positive, check. Nice, check. Wait - nice?

Shit. Okay. — Veronica Rossi

my father always said, "early to bed and
early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy
and wise."

it was lights out at 8 p.m. in our house
and we were up at dawn to the smell of
coffee, frying bacon and scrambled
eggs.

my father followed this general routine
for a lifetime and died young, broke,
and, I think, not too
wise.

taking note, I rejected his advice and it
became, for me, late to bed and late
to rise.

now, I'm not saying that I've conquered
the world but I've avoided
numberless early traffic jams, bypassed some
common pitfalls
and have met some strange, wonderful
people

one of whom
was
myself - someone my father
never
knew. — Charles Bukowski

I don't think I have as many friends as I thought I did, not close ones, not many who I connect with on that deep level of language that doesn't just allow us to be ourselves with each other but allows us to be understood, even when we're not saying anything.
Silence - awkward or comfortable - is a language too. Awkward silence screams, "We have nothing in common." Comfortable silence proves just how much we do. — Erin McCahan

You have a poem called "Bad Theology." What would you call a bad theology?
I guess any theology that presumes to have God in its pocket. Can I explain this without sinning further? We'll find out. The community in which I was raised did what they would call theology, but it was always a kind of cranky, brutal reduction of lush and beautiful complexities into the lowest common denominator, the dullest version. But when I went away to school and started reading more, I became increasingly dissatisfied with any theology that replaces the enormous, immeasurable real with very measurable and very calculated replacements. I'm not saying this very eloquently, but I guess bad theology articulates as definitive and conclusive that which is unknowable and without end. — Tony Leuzzi

It is a common saying that a man needs only six feet of land. But surely a corpse wants that, not a man. And I hear that our intellectuals have a longing for the land and want to acquire farms. But it all comes down to the six feet of land. To leave town, and the struggle and the swim of life, and go and hide yourself in a farmhouse is not life
it is egoism, laziness; it is a kind of monasticism, but monasticism without action. A man needs, not six feet of land, not a farm, but the whole earth, all Nature, where in full liberty he can display all the properties and qualities of the free spirit. — Anton Chekhov

Everything I'm saying shouldn't be taken so serious. I'm playing, but at the same token, I'm acknowledging that I'm not always the perfect man; I'm not always doing the right things. That's who I am. I'm working to be better. — Common

Word: I'm not saying the races don't have a common human bond. I'm just saying that bond isn't about compassion and equality and tolerance. What we all share together is the drive to get what's ours and keep it for as long as we can. — Snoop Dogg

Charles's old ally Don Enrique, King of Castile, also died before taking sides, and his son, Juan I, though heavily pressed by Charles V to support Clement, preferred to maintain "neutrality," saying that, while faithful to the French alliance, he could not go against the conscience of his subjects. Common people, nobility, clerics, learned men, he wrote, were all Urbanist. "What government, O wise prince," he pointedly inquired of Charles, "has ever succeeded in triumphing over public conscience supported by reason? What punishments are available to subjugate a free soul? — Barbara W. Tuchman

We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

One of the most common mistakes people make in any conversation is to think about what they want to say next instead of actually listening to what the other person is saying. — Max Weiss

That the crowd always likes a holiday is a common saying, but when the whole year becomes one long holiday, and nobody has time for attending to his business, and pleasure becomes compulsory, then it is a different matter. — Robert Graves

Failure in training identifies weaknesses so as to prevent them in the field, because as the common saying goes in the tactical community, "We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training." We live by that code. — Gary J. Byrne

And if Francoise then, inspired like a poet with a flood of confused reflections upon bereavement, grief, and family memories, were to plead her inability to rebut my theories, saying: "I don't know how to espress (sic) myself" - I would triumph over her with an ironical and brutal common sense worthy of Dr. Percepied; and if she went on: "All the same she was a geological (sic) relation; there is always the respect due to your geology (sic)," I would shrug my shoulders and say: "It is really very good of me to discuss the matter with an illiterate old woman who cannot speak her own language," adopting, to deliver judgment on Francoise, the mean and narrow outlook of the pedant, whom those who are most contemptuous of him in the impartiality of their own minds are only too prone to copy when they are obliged to play a part upon the vulgar stage of life. — Marcel Proust

Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, 'Just watch!' — Bill Bradley

If you go out on a date, for the first date, a guy should pay, a guy should be respectful and, you know, I'm not saying roll out a red carpet, but, like, open the door and just be polite and just have common courtesy. I don't think that's too much to ask. — Carly Aquilino

I take in his smooth cheeks, his rough chin and jaw, the developing wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
'We fall in love with somebody who maybe seems like a bad match,' Tully says, 'and our friends run around saying 'What does he see in her?' What he sees in her is what's hidden from everyone else. He's fallen in love with something invisible.'
'Or possibly he's made a common mistake,' I say, gazing at Tully. 'He was needy. He fell for outward appearances. He projected onto this person whatever it was he'd always longed for in a relationship, whatever he hungered for in life. He fell in love with the idea of love.'
'That's a pretty cynical point of view,' Tully says. — Jane Lotter

It is possible that Mount Olympus may have supplied the poets with the hint for saying that Jupiter obtained the kingdom of heaven, because Olympus is the common name both of the mountain and of heaven. — Lactantius

All good books are different but all bad books are exactly the same. I know this to be a fact because in my line of work I read a lot of bad books - books so bad they aren't even published, which is quite a feat, when you consider what is published.
And what they all have in common, these bad books, be they novels or memoirs, is this: they don't ring true. I'm not saying that a good book is true necessarily, just that it feels true for the time you're reading it. — Robert Harris

There is a saying from Roman antiquity: Fiat justitia - ruat caelum. "Do justice, and let the skies fall." In every epoch, there have been those to argue that "greater" goods, such as tribal solidarity or social cohesion, take precedence over the demands of justice. It is supposed to be an axiom of "Western" civilisation that the individual, or the truth, may not be sacrificed to hypothetical benefits such as "order." But in point of fact, such immolations have been very common. To the extent that the ideal is at least paid lip service, this result is the outcome of individual struggles against the collective instinct for a quiet life. — Christopher Hitchens

Sort of Coping"

Why is anyone in the world so terrible. Real catastrophe
and catastrophizing. If we only knew when it was going to
happen.

I saw you put your hands on the floor. Intimacy without
disturbances.
The scope here of memorization, planets. The history of children

sitting still. You are so cute in all your facebook photos.
When you moved to Portland I forgot we used to call you

Tumbleweed Tex. All those barking dogs, feathered hair.
We have something in common I never mention. I wish

I'd written it down and folded it into one of your piles
saying I want to read every one of these books! Do you think

you'll have read them all before the end of time. Did you go in
to see her when she was dead. Maybe you already knew. — Farrah Field

It was your mind. The way you were wired. That was the only thing all the theories had in common. You were manic. You were depressive. You were schizophrenic. You were on drugs. You were on the wrong medication. You needed medication. You heard voices. You'd lost the will to speak. Anxiety. Disorder. Nobody knew for sure, at least nobody who was saying anything. After you left, all the remained were guesses. I would go over everything. Every detail. Every panic. Every sigh. But they never added up to anything but you. I only saw the person. I couldn't see the wiring. I couldn't fix the wiring.
I tried I tried I — David Levithan

We can't tell China what to do if we don't do it ourselves. You don't inspire someone to take an action by refusing to take it yourself. We are in a race to be the dominant clean-energy provider to the world. Maybe this goes without saying: We've got to get China into an international protocol and the magic words are "common responsibility with differentiated action." — Jay Inslee

This is why we apply the LCD Principle or Lowest Common Democracy. In short, this is social interaction based not on the best possible good, but on the least possible offense. Without saying so, the parties involved have entered into the following arrangement: What is the least we can all agree on and still get along? Of course, you can see this means no one is pleased. — Geoffrey Wood

One of the most common mistakes for an entry-level job interview is to take the position: 'What is this job going to do for me?' You should be saying 'Here's what I can do and here's what I want to do to help you.' — Norah O'Donnell

Writers and actors have some creative ground in common, and so when you're writing a scene and hoping to convey a mood it's not the worst idea to try to put that mood into your headspace -- feel it, if only a little. I'm not saying you have to kill a kitten or punch your mother to feel something -- I just mean, stir up the memory of certain emotions if not the emotion itself. Same way an actor might think about a sad moment to conjure tears on-camera. 23. — Chuck Wendig

It is a common saying that a letter is a dead messenger; for it can give no more than it hath. And no letter is written so exactly, that there is nothing lacking. — Martin Luther

When you have style, it doesn't matter what other people are saying. — Common