Commonsense Quotes & Sayings

What we need is leadership that can deal with our mess and begin to apply practical solutions to our problems. My goal is not to design hundreds of pages of government regulation and red tape like others propose. We need to outline commonsense policies and then knock some heads together if necessary to make them work. The fact is we are over-regulated. People can't move. They're stymied. Companies can't be built. We're over-regulated. — Donald J. Trump

It is not the homeless, mentally ill or extremely cunning people that we have to be afraid of. When someone loses everything that meant something to them is when people should get very afraid. A person that has nothing to lose is the scariest person on earth. — Shannon L. Alder

Empowering Women 101: Know the difference between real love and a person that is with you because it is easy and convenient. A real woman doesn't live in the fantasy that he just all of a sudden knew you were the one and no one else believes that either. Be willing to settle and accept the situation or work on it. However, don't sit in denial and pretend going through hell in a relationship was required before he saw your worth. He should have known from the beginning. — Shannon L. Alder

The implications of these considerations justify the statement that all empirically verifiable knowledge even the commonsense knowledge of everyday life - involves implicitly, if not explicitly, systematic theory in this sense. — Talcott Parsons

Our everyday "commonsense" knowledge as a human being is even greater; "street smarts" actually require substantially more of our neocortex than "book smarts." Including this brings our estimate to well over 100 million patterns, taking into account the redundancy factor of about 100. — Ray Kurzweil

The New Capitalism (arising from the global economic downturn) ... those running our biggest commercial businesses will have to be more visible. They'll have to manifest a genuine understanding not only of the anxieties of their employees but of all taxpayers. Those chief executives who succeed will be those who imbue in their businesses very simple, commonsense standards of decency — Robert Peston

I rise today in strong support of the Children's Safety and Violent Crime Reduction Act, because it is a commonsense way to protect our schoolchildren from pedophiles. — Ric Keller

King Solomon did not have a university degree, but had a doctorate in commonsense. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Securities based on risky mortgages are what toppled financial institutions but it was the government that made the mortgages risky in the first place, by making home-ownership statistics the holy grail, for which everything else was to be sacrificed, including commonsense standards for making home loans. — Thomas Sowell

By making bold cuts in spending and commonsense entitlement reforms, we will make our government simpler, smaller, and smarter. — Mitt Romney

I used to joke that if acting didn't work out, poetry was my commonsense fallback. — Merritt Wever

That human life is but a first installment of the serial soul and that one's individual secret is not lost in the process of earthly dissolution, becomes something more than an optimistic conjecture, and even more than a matter of religious faith, when we remember that only commonsense rules immortality out. — Vladimir Nabokov

A best friend is the one person that doesn't leave you worse off by their actions or yours. — Shannon L. Alder

Nature battles against us sometimes, and it can be hard. Our souls seek a soul mate and our bodies seek to procreate. You need to be wise and self controlled and not put yourself in a place where nature might overcome your commonsense. — M.H. Strom

Most reformers wore rubber boots and stood on glass when God sent a current of Commonsense through the Universe. — Elbert Hubbard

Love, at its best, wipes commonsense
Away. Much as drops will condense
From hidden liquid in the air,
So, too, do lovers soon compare
Their temp'ratures til, happily,
Their judgement fogs up suddenly. — McKenzie Bodkin

I had been right, this was just the sort of place where superstition and tittle-tattle were rife, and even allowed to hold sway over commonsense. Now, — Susan Hill

But it is distressing that any organisation consisting of large numbers of young men, should be so utterly little minded and lacking in not only vision but in commonsense or common understanding. The R.S.S. is typical in this respect of the type of organisation that grew up in various parts of Europe in support of fascism ... — Jawaharlal Nehru

Mrs Hendred was a very pretty woman of great good-nature and much less than commonsense. — Georgette Heyer

Together we are stronger, our voices louder, and the synergy of our actions more powerful. Together we can prevail on the Navy to put commonsense safeguards in place, like requiring its ships to avoid the most sensitive marine mammal habitats and to stop their training exercises during peak migrations. — Pierce Brosnan

What's most aggravating is feeling like I'm a radical for saying something so commonsense. — Arielle Greenberg

It is one of the great weaknesses of reasonable men and women that they imagine that projects which fly in the face of commonsense are not serious or being seriously undertaken. — Margaret Thatcher

The base of our party is commonsense conservatives.If the Republican Party gets back to that base, I think our party's going to be stronger and there's not going to be a need for a third party. — Michael Enzi

E-Verify is a very commonsense reform that we can implement here in the state of Florida. I think I share a lot of Floridians' frustration that it didn't pass and a lot of the politics that were taking place behind the scenes. — Adam Hasner

Going to God ... Now let me tell you why this truth is so important: way to many men and women want to use commonsense arguments or manipulation to change the way their spouses feel about or respond toward them. This is absolutely devastating in the end. In our conflicts, we start throwing jabs and we wound each other deeply, or we play some kind of manipulation game in order to order to get our spouses to do what we want. — Matt Chandler

Much of economics isn't difficult, or rather, the difficulty is in cooking up arguments to "prove" that commonsense conclusions are wrong. The fact is that many commonsense conclusions are quite correct, and it takes a lot of education to get you to believe different. — Jerry Pournelle

A process of self-deception to satisfy and summarily persuade yourself of righteousness. What one among us has any excuse but self-love? We do not create or confess a morality that is convenient, that lends itself to growth, and remains simple, that allows transgression without excuse or punishment. It would be wise and commonsense to do so, whatever the state of affairs in your mind. Nature eventually denies that which it affirms: Through permanent association with the same moral code we help desire to transgress. Desire of those things denied, the more you restrict the more you sin, but desire equally desires preservation of moral instinct, so desire is its own conflict (and weakly enough). Have no fear, the Bull of earth has long had nothing to do with your unclean conscience, your stagnant ideas of morality. The microbe alone would seem without fear! — Austin Osman Spare

Sometimes all you need is one person with a guilty conscience to come forward and do the right thing. Often, the miracle you need resides inside of yourself, when you humbly ask for forgiveness. — Shannon L. Alder

Be careful of living your life based only on faith and signs, or you might find yourself standing in a South American jungle holding a glass of Kool-aid. Commonsense is the foundation of any good testimony. — Shannon L. Alder

To resolve the discrepancy between waves of probability and our commonsense notion of existence, Bohr and Heisenberg assumed that after a measurement is made by an outside observer, the wave function magically "collapses," and the electron falls into a definite
state - that is, after looking at the tree, we see that it is truly standing. In other words, the process of observation determines the final state of the electron. Observation is vital to existence. — Michio Kaku

I know that my work in this case is magnified by the fact that the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels. We know their names. They number a thousand for each one of the red ribbons that we wear here tonight. They finally rest in the warm embrace of the gracious creator of us all, a healing embrace that cools their fevers, that clears their skin, and allows their eyes to see the simple, self-evident commonsense truth that is made manifest by the benevolent creator of us all. — Tom Hanks

History is filled with examples of men and women who rendered highly effective performance without the conventional badges of accomplishment in terms of certificates, diplomas, or degrees. Diplomas and tests are useful servants, but Congress has mandated the commonsense proposition that they are not to become masters of reality. — Warren E. Burger

Education without religion is in danger of substituting wild theories for the simple commonsense rules of Christianity. — Samuel Morse

While there are no easy solutions to this problem, the Deficit Reduction Act gets us started in the right direction by beginning with the most obvious, commonsense reforms to save taxpayer dollars. — Jim Ryun

Goal setting is commonsense; you don't waste fuel traveling for miles to an imaginary destination. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Logic is one thing and commonsense another. — Elbert Hubbard

Love is the universal panacea; it cures things even commonsense cannot. — Matshona Dhliwayo

We can say that Faustus makes a choice, and that he is responsible for his choice, but there is in the play a suggestion - sometimes explicit, sometimes only dimly implicit - that Faustus comes to destruction not merely through his own actions but through the actions of a hostile cosmos that entraps him. In this sense, too, there is something of Everyman in Faustus. The story of Adam, for instance, insists on Adam's culpability; Adam, like Faustus, made himself, rather than God, the center of his existence. And yet, despite the traditional expositions, one cannot entirely suppress the commonsense response that if the Creator knew Adam would fall, the Creator rather than Adam is responsible for the fall; Adam ought to have been created of better stuff. — Sylvan Barnet

Religion should be subject to commonsense appraisal and rational review, as openly discussible as, say, politics, art and the weather. The First Amendment, we should recall, forbids Congress both from establishing laws designating a state religion and from abridging freedom of speech. There is no reason why we should shy away from speaking freely about religion, no reason why it should be thought impolite to debate it, especially when, as so often happens, religious folk bring it up on their own and try to impose it on others. — Jeffrey Tayler

I'm surprised when I see someone doing the logical, commonsense thing: Walk facing the oncoming traffic. — Robert James Thomson

In a not too distant future, reason and education will have driven home the lesson of the futility of jealousy. The day will come when our beloved children (the cuckolds of the future) will be prepared to be cuckolded and will no longer suffer for it, because we shall have inoculated them with commonsense and given them anti-cuckoldry injections. Now — Pitigrilli

When communism failed, it wasn't a good idea that had gone wrong, it was a bad idea that had been sustained with incredible determination in the face of all the commonsense arguments, and at the cost of 20 million lives at least, in Russia, to build the socialist Utopia. — Martin Amis

We should get in the habit of continually seeking His counsel on everything, instead of making our own commonsense decisions and then asking Him to bless them. — Oswald Chambers

Disputing the commonsense notion that all events require the prior existence of some underlying matter or substance. There is no antecedent static cabinet. — Alfred North Whitehead

Certainly, a clear line must be preserved by strict discipline, and on the other hand the men must know that everything is done for them that hard times permit. On the top of that it follows that, among real men, what counts is deeds, not words; and then it comes of itself, when such are the relations between men and their leaders, that instead of opposition there is harmony between them. The leader is merely a clearer expression of the common will and an example of life and death. And there is no science in all this. It is a practical quality, the simple manly commonsense that is native to a sound and vigorous race. — Ernst Junger

Commonsense lets us down, because commonsense evolved in a world where nothing moves very fast, and nothing is very small or very large; the mundane world of the familiar. — Richard Dawkins

Americans are quite skeptical about the goal of promoting democracy. People feel it's a desirable goal, but, from a commonsense point of view, both Republicans and Democrats have come to the conclusion that democracy is something that countries can only come to on their own. — Daniel Yankelovich

The dangerously high level of stupidity surplus was once again the lead story in The Owl that morning. The reason for the crisis was clear: Prime Minister Redmond van de Poste and his ruling Commonsense Party had been discharging their duties with a reckless degree of responsibility that bordered on inspired sagacity. Instead of drifting from one crisis to the next and appeasing the nation with a steady stream of knee-jerk legislation and headline-grabbing but arguably pointless initiatives, they had been resolutely building a raft of considered long-term plans that concentrated on unity, fairness and tolerance. It was a state of affairs deplored by Mr. Alfredo Traficcone, leader of the opposition Prevailing Wind Party, who wanted to lead the nation back to the safer ground of uniformed stupidity. — Jasper Fforde

There is a kind of wisdom that grows in the heart from living in places such as you have been. It builds integrity and strong character. ~Then'diel — K. Farrell St. Germain

Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion. — Mahatma Gandhi

(Von Rundstedt) was not a man of great original thought nor an intellect, but never tried to conceal this. On the other hand, he had much commonsense, an ability to see both sides of an argument, and was possessed with clarity of thought, especially when it came to reducing a problem to its fundamental essentials quickly. He also had, at least until his later years, a capacity for hard work. - pg. 309-310 — Charles Messenger

Many come to seek fortunes who only find trouble and sorrow, and then they throw the blame on chance, and forget the true cause is their own idleness and vice and want of commonsense. Whoever is sober and industrious, honest and economical, gets on. — Jules Verne

The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Progressives start small. They introduce 'commonsense' regulations and restrictions that will supposedly save lives. Then, each time the public's attention is captured, they push further. — Glenn Beck

The goal of medicine is peculiarly, the goal of making itself unneccessary: of influencing life so that what is medicine today becomes mere commonsense tomorrow. — Adolf Meyer

Commonsense is the wick of the candle. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We were meant to rescue each other, not cut down the forest to rescue one. — Shannon L. Alder

It's important not just to confirm normal, commonsense assumptions, but to actually convert the uncertain. To win over those who want to be won over, and sharpen the spear of facts and puncture the flatulent balloon of sanctimonious outrage. We better find them, soon, before America turns into one giant daycare center for dipshits. — Greg Gutfeld

If soulmates did exist I am pretty sure they would never divorce you, dump you, kick you out, separate from you or make you an option. They would never give up because you meant that much to them. — Shannon L. Alder

The commonsense rules of the "real world" are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions. — Tim Ferriss

To maintain their power, dominant groups create and maintain a popular system of 'commonsense' ideas that support their right to rule. In the United States, hegemonic ideologies concerning race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation are often so pervasive that it is difficult to conceptualize alternatives to them, let alone ways of resisting the social practices that they justify. — Patricia Hill Collins

He risked a glance at the aft-vision display. The other fighter was coming up fast, with no more than a minute or two separating the two ships. Obviously, the pilot had far more experience with the craft than Luke had. That, or else such a fierce determination to recapture Luke that it completely overrode normal commonsense caution.

Either way, it meant Mara Jade. — Timothy Zahn

Although we've been authoritatively informed that a majority of Americans support a "pathway to citizenship," approximately five hundred times in the last two years alone, according to a quick Nexis search,18 that is a lie. This is part of the media's campaign to convince Americans they're nuts for preferring not to turn America into Mexico. Polls are irrelevant if you lie to the people being polled. Poll: Do you support commonsense gun safety or are you against it? Headline: MAJORITY OF AMERICANS SUPPORT GUN CONTROL. But I hate gun control! Too late! You agreed to "commonsense gun safety" - that means gun control. — Ann Coulter

The theory of conceptual semantics, which proposes that word senses are mentally represented as expressions in a richer and more abstract language of thought, stands at the center of this circle, compatible with all of the complications. Word meanings can vary across languages because children assemble and fine-tune them from more elementary concepts. They can be precise because the concepts zero in on some aspects of reality and slough off the rest. And they can support our reasoning because they represent lawful aspects of reality-space, time, causality, objects, intentions, and logic-rather than the system of noises that developed in a community to allow them to communicate. Conceptual semantics fits, too, with our commonsense notion that words are not the same as thoughts, and indeed, that much of human wisdom consists of not mistaking one for the other. — Steven Pinker

I kissed her cheek then, because I feared to do it and though commonsense may occasionally bind me, I'll be fucked if fear will. — Mark Lawrence

Moses was good at his job. He was efficient. He was always busy making the room clean. But at the same time, he could read the family's emotions. He never made a medical diagnosis or overstepped the bounds of his position. But he shared a lot of practical, commonsense wisdom gleaned from helping hundreds of families make it through traumatic surgery. Moses reinforced the good: "You're sitting up today; that's a good boy." He offered encouragement: "You're brave. You're strong. You can do it." He gave practical advice: "You've been through a lot, but you're coming through it now. Your body knows what to do. Just rest and let it do it." Matt and Mindi looked forward to visits from Moses because as he made their hospital room clean, he also gave them hope. — David Sturt

When things don't add up, either you don't have a calculator or you forgot to use commonsense by simply asking. — Shannon L. Alder

Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life-gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. — Oswald Chambers

Even though some individual scholars try to tell us there is no direct connection between images of violence and the violence confronting us in our lives, the commonsense truth remains- we are affected by the images we consume and by the states of mind we are in when watching them. If consumers want to be entertained, and the images shown us as entertaining are images of violent dehumanization, it makes sense that these acts become more acceptable in our daily lives and that we become less likely to respond to them with moral outrage or concern. Were we all seeing more images of loving human interaction, it would undoubtedly have a positive impact on our lives. — Bell Hooks

As the data from the past decade clarify, there is no evidence that poverty causes crime but a great deal of evidence that crime causes poverty. By aligning themselves against the police, against commonsense tactics like stop and frisk, against metal detectors in public housing, against swift and certain punishment, and for a broad array of legal protections for accused criminals, liberals helped to aggrieve the lives of the poor and society as a whole. — Mona Charen

Commonsense has trampled down many a gentle genius whose eyes had delighted in a too early moonbeam of some too early truth; commonsense has back-kicked dirt at the loveliest of queer paintings because a blue tree seemed madness to its well-meaning hoof; commonsense has prompted ugly but strong nations to crush their fair but frail neighbors the moment a gap in history offered a chance that it would have been ridiculous not to exploit. — Vladimir Nabokov

Philosophy can be said to consist of three activities: to see the commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem that the common sense answer is unbearable, and to get from that situation back to the commonsense answer. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus much deeper down, to get into the habit of steadily referring everything back to Him; instead of this we make our commonsense decisions and ask God to bless them. — Oswald Chambers

Sometimes in your life you just meet someone or hear something that nudges you on the right path. And that becomes the best advice. It could just be a bit of commonsense said in a way that resonates with something in you. It's nothing new, but because it connects with you it holds meaning for you. — Chetan Bhagat

I think Donald Trump taps into an anger that I hear every day. People are angry that a commonsense thing like securing the border or ending sanctuary cities is somehow considered extreme. It's not extreme; it's common sense. We need to secure the border. — Carly Fiorina

Judgement is always based on experience and sometimes you will battle a person's history first, before commonsense will ever win the war. — Shannon L. Alder

Commonsense will never come from following your heart; wisdom is only stored in the mind. — Shannon L. Alder

If you look at my Instagram, girls are just beating down my door for tips or a job or mentorship. I can't hire every single one of them. My story is one thing that gives them hope. It's an unconventional story with anecdotes, commonsense advice and a big dose of permission to figure things out for yourself. — Sophia Amoruso

With the discovery of vast new North American energy resources - thanks to the application of proven technologies like hydraulic fracturing and commonsense regulatory processes on non-federal lands - the U.S. government should no longer be in the business of spending taxpayer dollars on risky, exotic energy projects. — Fred Upton

Within the strictures of commonsense reality and personal ability, we can choose to do anything we like in this world ... with one exception: We cannot choose what any of our choices will be. To do that, we would have to be capable of making ourselves into self-made individuals who can choose what they choose as opposed to being individuals who simply make choices. For instance, we may want to become bodybuilders and choose to do so. But if we do not want to become bodybuilders we cannot make ourselves into someone who does want to be a bodybuilder. For that to happen, there would have to be another self inside us who made us choose to want to become bodybuilders. And inside that self, there would have to be still another self who made that self want to choose to choose to make us want to become bodybuilders. — Thomas Ligotti

some commonsense qualities that lead to a great company culture: a desire to buck trends, a good sense of perspective, a belief in a better tomorrow, a willingness to go the extra mile and stick with things for a long time, the ability to maintain quality relationships, and, last but not least, having fun and appreciating everything. — Susie Wyshak

We magistrates find that reason is the easiest thing in the world to dispense with; banished from our law courts as it is from our heads, we delight in trampling it underfoot, and that is what makes our judicial sentences such masterpieces, since (although commonsense never presides in them) those sentences are carried out with as much firmness as if people knew what they actually meant. — Marquis De Sade

My earliest books focus almost entirely on psychological tools to help readers employ effective commonsense approaches to problems. There are no references to God or a higher self in the first 15 or so years of my publishing history. — Wayne Dyer

Faith requires following the power of a whisper. — Shannon L. Alder

If he can't handle you at your worst then he does not deserve you at your best. Real love means seeing beyond the words spoken out of pain, and instead seeing a person's soul. — Shannon L. Alder

If you have to convince someone to stay with you then they have already left. — Shannon L. Alder

I wouldn't give ten gallons of my own piss for clear sentence that gives the sense of a tree as a tree, when I revel in the nonsense of its being my own Grandfather, a letter from yesterday, or a masturbating fist. — David Joseph Cribbin

Moreover, from reforming the tax code to our immigration system, to commonsense legal reform, President Bush put America on notice that he will continue fighting to make the country, and the world, a better place for future generations. — Jim Sensenbrenner

The wise men of old have sent most of their morality down the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram; and the proverbs of nations, which embody the commonsense of nations, have the brisk concussion of the most sparkling wit. — Edwin Percy Whipple

There is nothing worse then being surrounded by a bunch of people telling you to do what is right, when they can't define that definition, without a lot of hatred and judgment behind it. — Shannon L. Alder

Maybe, the question isn't who will look good by your side, who will make these days less dull, who will bring you the greatest financial benefit, who will be the one to bring you pleasure, who do you have the most in common with?.... Maybe, the question one should ask is who do you want at your side when you are dying? — Shannon L. Alder

Was I insane? Maybe. But then, there were many different kinds of insanity. Aunt Rose had always taken for granted that the whole world was in a state of constantly fluctuating madness, and that a neurosis was not an illness, but a fact of life, like pimples. Some have more, some have less, but only truly abnormal people have none at all. This commonsense philosophy had consoled me many times before, and it did now, too. — Anne Fortier

I am a commonsense sort of a person, and I don't get carried away with emotion and fears. — Gerry Harvey

There is such a thing as commonsense middle-ground gun reform, and most gun owners support it. — Mike Quigley

Long standing hatred between a man and a woman is just unspoken attraction that has bruised egos. — Shannon L. Alder

Under most conditions, the best roof for your bedroom is the sky. This commonsense arrangement saves weight, time, energy, and money. — Colin Fletcher

If you have to make a daily choice to be in a relationship then you are married to the past, not the person. — Shannon L. Alder

You can't expect the impossible to happen if you don't meet the impossible half way. — Shannon L. Alder

Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense." ... "We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.""The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us. — Theodore Roosevelt

A wise woman protects her kids. A wiser woman hangs out with police officers, retired FBI agents and private investigators. — Shannon L. Alder