"Commonsense" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... same idea also depends the custom of the appeal to ordeal, the working of which is supposed to be spiritual. Nevertheless, the intelligent native, believing all the time in this factor, squares the commonsense factor by bribing the witch-doctor who ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... went with his wife to sing duets in the open air on the Champs-Elysees, to pick up a few sous. Emilio and Massimilla de Varese were deeply sympathetic of the Gambaras, whom they met in the neighborhood of Faubourg Saint-Honore. Paolo Gambara had no commonsense except when drunk. He had invented an outlandish instrument which he called the ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... night before when Lucy's strong commonsense had told her that the only chance for her own peace and Eleanor's was to go at once, to stop any further development of the situation, and avoid any ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was true that he was of no use in the present emergency, that his absence would make things easier. But that it was the truth made it no less hard to hear. He gave in at last and agreed to all Yoshio's proposals—a curious compound of devotion to his master, shrewd commonsense and knowledge of the laws of the country. He went quickly down the winding path to the gate. The garden hurt him. The careless splashing of the tiny waterfall jarred poignantly—laughing water caring nothing that ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... A good, practical, commonsense proof of what I am saying is to be found in the fact that the ordinary man and also the man of brains who has gone through the good old fortifying classical curriculum, to quote Matthew Arnold once more, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... The classic examples of these are the numbers used in hash or CRC functions, or the coefficients in a linear congruential generator for pseudo-random numbers. This sense actually predates and was ancestral to the more commonsense 1. 3. Special data located at the beginning of a binary data file to indicate its type to a utility. Under Unix, the system and various applications programs (especially the linker) distinguish between types of executable file by looking for ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... the meal was over the guests departed, and although the Doctor detained Guido and endeavoured to persuade him to listen to the voice of reason and commonsense, his efforts were in vain. Guido ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... evidently become a very nice and serious question, of which Mr. M'Fadden is inclined to take a commonsense view. His opponent, however, will not deviate from the strictest usages of business. Business mentioned the mental qualities of the property, but warranted only ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... discovered a perfect opiate in Wordsworth's poetry. I find myself stopping short at the effect of sherry and Popish leanings on the publican and his trade, and still more the effect of his return to ale and commonsense religion: how everyone bought his liquids and paid for them and wanted to treat him, while the folk of his parish had already made him a churchwarden. This might have been writ sarcastic by ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... is something very different," continued the Professor. Quite another interest had taken hold of the Professor. It was easy enough to summon Dame Commonsense to one's aid when Malvina was not present. Before those strange eyes the good lady had a habit of sneaking away. Suppose—of course the idea was ridiculous, but suppose—something did happen! As a psychological experiment was not one ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... water never freezes. Scientific men, we were told, attributed this to the action of earthquakes in distant parts of the world, their vibrations affecting the surface of the water here; while others, apparently of the more commonsense type, attribute it to the extreme depth of the water in the loch itself, for in the centre it is ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... to take the Holsteigs by the throat, but I swallowed it, for fear of doing them an injury. I was feeling much the same general abhorrence myself, and had to hold myself in all the time for fear it should gallop over my commonsense. But Harburn, I could see, was giving it full rein. His whole manner and personality somehow had changed. He had lost geniality, and that good-humoured cynicism which had made him an attractive companion; he was as if gnawed at inwardly—in a ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... commonsense it is the poorest kind of business at the present time of life to sit down and grizzle because one proved in the long run not to be a poet. I will not deny a certain inevitable melancholy in the retrospect, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... the city, Sancho Panza was called upon to give judgment in certain teasing disputes, and this he did with such wit and such wholesome commonsense that he delighted all who heard him. Well-pleased with himself, he sat down in a grand hall to a solitary banquet, with a physician standing by his side. No sooner had Sancho tasted a dish than the physician touched it with a wand, and a page bore it swiftly away. At first Sancho was confounded ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... beloved gems and solaced himself with them till it was time for his bath, which he took in his private bathrooms. He and I dined alone and talked chiefly of our hopes of the new Emperor. Falco particularly remarked his appearance of hard commonsense, ruthless decision ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... canna draw breath, What wi' sanitries, cruelties, an' bobbies, An' the doctors would pit ye in fair fear o' death Wi' their blethers o' German macrobbies! I've been at their lectures on health an' High Jean, Gude kens that I niver was wearier! Use your ain commonsense when ye're treating' your wean, An' ye'll find ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... mouth moved. It closed, and then dropped open again. The search for the Plumies had been made because it looked like they had to be fought. But Baird had just pointed out some extremely commonsense items which changed the situation entirely. And there was evidence that the Plumies saw the situation the new way. The skipper felt such enormous relief that his manner changed. He displayed what was almost effusive ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... the girl replied, "two things called the greatest things. You," she continued to Pan, "said it was Hunger, and long ago my father said that Commonsense was the greatest thing ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... where one might suppose one might go to make a private plea, still one could never find him there. He refused to receive complaints or requests or visits of any kind there. If you wanted to speak to him you had to do it when he was with the group in its entirety—a commonsense enough policy. But just the same there were those who had reasonable requests or complaints, and these, by a fine intuition as to who was who in this institution and what might be expected of each one, he managed to hear very softly, withdrawing slowly as they ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... spoken. His phrasing is unpretentious, even homely, wearing none of the polished brilliancy of La Rochefoucauld or Bernard Shaw; but Mark Twain's sayings "stick" because they are rooted in shrewdness and hard commonsense. ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... a character as that afforded by the cutter, while it would be infinitely more comfortable, at all events for Flora, should they happen to encounter bad weather. Following this train of thought, it seemed to Leslie that the obvious commonsense course for him to pursue was to take the catamaran, go out to the barque, and, acquainting the skipper with all the circumstances relating to the presence of the little party upon the island, pilot her into the lagoon, with the view of coming ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood |
