"Commonty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of yours how I talk and act, you stay-at-home blow-hard. My common sense will not let me believe any such reports, which are not reports at all, but something those newspaper men made up all out of their own heads, on purpose to give such fellows as you a subject to talk about. Some of the fleet may have sprung a leak—probably they did if they were ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... suit of brown, the colour of her hair. At the wrists and neck of her brown-silk waist were spotless bands of white; and on her head was a dashing little brown hat with green wings. She exhibited square-toed little brown boots as an evidence of exceeding common sense; and was pulling on a pair of absurdly small boy's gloves. This most suitable costume for the North was ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... meaning it, instructive; but his talk is to profitable conversation what the stone is to the pulp of the peach, what the cob is to the kernels on an ear of Indian corn. Once more: Do not be bullied out of your common sense by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant, with all his knowledge and valuable qualities, and will "cavil on the ninth part of a hair," if it will give him a chance to ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... array. The Arabs pay little attention to marching in order, and in a straight line, so that the camels traverse double the quantity of ground that there would be any occasion for did they attend to plain common sense. The Desert now showed more signs of cultivation, and, indeed, a great portion of this so-called Desert is only land uncultivated, but capable of the highest degree of cultivation;—all which might be effected by supplying any scarcity ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... to show you the truth that you may embrace it. You may congratulate yourself on this, which proves the solidity of your judgment. For it is glorious to give one's self up to reason, and to be the votary of common sense. Prejudice so arms mankind that the world is full of people who slight their judgment; nay, who resist the most obvious pleas of their understanding. Their eyes, long shut to the light of truth, are unable to bear its rays; but they can endure the glimmerings of superstition, ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... said Silence, "I tell you, to begin with, I'm not a going to be sauced in this 'ere way by you. You hain't got common decency, nor common sense, nor common any thing else, to talk so to me about my father; I won't ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a way as you can; next, shove your pen under the thought, and lift it by polysyllables to the true level of fiction," (when done, find a publisher—if you can). "This," said Triplet, "insures common sense to your ideas, which does pretty well for a basis," said Triplet, apologetically, "and elegance to the dress they wear." Triplet, then casting his eyes round in search of such actual circumstances as could be incorporated ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... child of mine go away among strangers in that manner," declared Mrs. Underhill. "No one can tell what will happen to her. I shouldn't have thought it of Mr. Theodore. The women, of course, are not overweighted with common sense, and the poor child ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... suited the boys exactly. It was so plainly dictated by common sense that the wonder was they had not thought of it long before. Elwood took the paddle in his hand and ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... toward manhood. You might call him, in a word, a queer, little, ugly-looking box of yellow mortality, that contained some amiable qualities, and a great many valuable attainments. Of good sense, or of common sense, he was never known to show, during the whole period of his life, but one instance; and that was a most important one—a complete deference, in all things, to his stately and beautiful wife. Her dominion ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... him away from home much of the time during my boyhood, and as a consequence I grew up under the sole guidance and training of my mother, whose excellent common sense and clear discernment in every way fitted her for such maternal duties. When old enough I was sent to the village school, which was taught by an old-time Irish "master"—one of those itinerant dominies of the early frontier—who, holding that to ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... his loose ideas on money matters, and his political opinions, at times annoyed, irritated, and puzzled him almost beyond endurance. With the older and the younger group Selwyn was on the same terms of intimate friendship: now pleasing by his wit, and now helping by his kindness and common sense. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... compunction the leather of cattle who have neither committed suicide nor died of old age. And the anti-vivisectionists view without any stir of pity the children of the slums and the sick of all kinds. Pity raises man to the divine but, like all the gentle qualities, it needs guidance by reason and common sense before ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... gentlemen, that it is time for us to learn that woman is neither a slave nor an angel, but a human being, entitled to be treated with ordinary common sense in the adjustment of human affairs . ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... concern in his future happiness, was tempted to improve his vantage ground by calling in the aid of some of the peculiar subtilties of his own creed, the young man was too good a soldier not to make head against the hot attack. He came to the contest, it is true, with no weapons more formidable than common sense, and some little knowledge of the habits of his country as contrasted with that of his adversary; but with these homebred implements he never failed to repulse the father with something of the power with which a nervous cudgel ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... reluctance. But it is our duty and we must do it. Of the contagious nature of the KEMBLE PLAGUE in acting we cannot adduce a more lamentable proof than that it sometimes taints even this very judicious performer. How has it been endured by the British public, how can it be reconciled to common sense, that players who are supposed to represent human beings, and who assume to speak and act as men in real existence, speak and act in the commerce of the world, should constantly utter the lines set down for them, in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... allies. To think of replacing the officers with others is visionary. The loss of the veteran soldiers could not be replaced. To attempt to carry on the war with militia against disciplined troops, will be to attempt what the common sense and common experience of mankind will pronounce to be impracticable. But I should fail in respect to congress, to dwell on observations of this kind in a ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... boys impartially as far as Dennis or Jim's mother could perceive. The girl with her common sense and her foolishness and her youthfulness was an inexpressible joy to Jim's mother, who always had longed for a daughter. She had dreams about Jim and Pen that she confided to no one and she looked on Penelope's impartiality with a ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... little share of common sense, And knowledge of the world, will soon evince That this a story is of time long pass'd; No husbands now such panic terrors cast; Nor weakly, with a vain despotic hand, Imperious, what's impossible, command: And be they discontented, or the fire ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... common sense, Presley," returned S. Behrman with perfect aplomb. "What could you have gained ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... with her parents. By prettily filial attentions to Mollie's mother his cause will be materially strengthened, and though the young lady may grudge the time he spends in discussing politics or stocks and shares with her father, her own common sense will tell her that it is a very good investment for the future. Moreover, a really nice-minded girl would never tolerate a man who was discourteous to her parents, however flattering his attitude might be ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... tunnel, had surely been created as a frame for the face which had looked upon her as if out of the heart of the sun. The assumption was absurd, unreasonable, yet vital. She did not combat it because she felt it too powerful for common sense to strive against. And it seemed to her that the stranger felt it too, that she saw her sensation reflected in his eyes as he stood between the parapet and the staircase wall, barring—in despite of himself—her path. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... Former United States Food Administrator.—'The United States has been for one hundred and fifty years steadily developing a social philosophy of its own. This philosophy has stood this test in the fire of common sense. We have a willingness to abide by the will of the majority. For all I know it may be necessary to have revolutions in some places in Europe in order to bring about these things, but it does not follow that such philosophies have any place ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... only easy at home, where the common sense and the supreme relation between her parents produced a freer standard of being than she could find outside. Where, outside the Marsh, could she find the tolerant dignity she had been brought up in? Her parents stood undiminished and unaware of criticism. The people she met outside seemed ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... into the chair and second the motion, which, nobody objectin', is carried unanimously. Gentlemen, the business of this here meetin' is to appoint a commander to this here ship, an' what could be more in accordance with the rule o' three—not to mention the rules o' four and common sense—than a Shipton takin' command. Who's goin' to ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... condoled with his majesty, and approved of all he had done. Then, being a fairy of great common sense and foresight, she suggested that the princess, awakening after a hundred years in this ancient castle, might be a good deal embarrassed, especially with a young prince by her side, to find herself alone. Accordingly, without asking any one's ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... Society, on Washington's Birthday, and it is even more inflated than the first specimen. Combined with the rhetoric, however, there is a mass of sober argument that again suggests the later Lincoln. The arguments, too, are characterized by a sound common sense that is no less characteristic of the speaker. The peroration deserves quotation as being one of the finest and at the same time one of the least familiar passages in Lincoln's writings: "This is the one hundredth and tenth anniversary of the ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... "That's what common sense always asks. I could do nothing alone, but if all the decent people tried their hardest it would make a difference.... It's the thought of the cruelty in the world that makes me sick. It's the hardest thing for me to keep from being happy. Great-aunt Alison said I had a light nature. ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... tillage is attended to even by those who are the best able to carry it on; and the column of turnips proves in the clearest manner what the progress of improvement is in that kingdom. The number of horses may almost be esteemed a satire upon common sense; were they well fed enough to be useful, they would not be so numerous, but I have found a good hack for a common ride scarce in a house where there were a hundred. Upon an average, the horses in gentlemen's stables throughout the kingdom are not ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... is the account repeated by many a Castilian writer since, without any symptom of distrust. But a tissue of unprovoked atrocities like these is too repugnant to the principles of human nature, - and, indeed, to common sense, to warrant our belief in them on ordinary ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... Aunt Julia has plenty of common sense. You're quite right, Olivia. This isn't a thing we ...
— Mr. Pim Passes By • Alan Alexander Milne
... was a humbug and a fraud. His idea seemed to be that our war should be conducted strictly in accordance with the methods of the old Napoleonic wars of Europe, which, in the main, were not at all adapted to our time and conditions. Moreover, he seemed to be totally deficient in sound, practical common sense. Soon after the Confederates evacuated Corinth he was transferred to Washington to serve in a sort of advisory capacity, and spent the balance of the war period in a swivel-chair in an office. He never was in a battle, and never heard a gun fired, except distant cannonading ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... the common sense course was to make a noise that would be heard by the burglars and would scare them off. That is to say that theoretically this would occur, but it might not. Knowing how much loot was within their reach, ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... due to common sense, but to a wish not to dissipate his rage on people that didn't matter. He wanted ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... take him to task about his continual distrust. It was he himself who had given himself a fever, always fancying that he was surrounded by enemies who were setting traps for him, and watching him to rob him. Was there any common sense in imagining that people were persecuting him in that way? And then she accused him of allowing his head to be turned by his discovery, his famous remedy for curing every disease. That was as much as to think himself equal to the good God; which only made it all the more cruel ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... went vigorously to work at that fire, although he had never laid eyes on anything so primitive as that stove in all his life. Presently, by using common sense, he had the thing going and a forlorn ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... But common sense prevailed in the end. No, there was no possible chance for theft. She had not spoken of "Patroclus" to any one but Trevor. Her manuscript draft had not once left her hands. No; it was a coincidence, ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... pockets. On the contrary, he went with me, and was a witness to all the purchases I made. The colonial produce was duly bought, in his presence, and many a shrewd hint did I get from this cool-headed and experienced man, who, while he was no merchant, in the common sense of the term, had sagacity enough to make a first-class dealer. As I paid for everything in ready money, the cargo was obtained on good terms, and the Dawn was soon stowed. As soon as this was done, I ordered a crew shipped, and the hatches ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... prevent my ever alluding to it lightly or carelessly. Of all things, I should dislike to have a joke made of it. But with you I have no fear of that. And you trust me, don't you? I don't mean as to truthfulness only; but you don't think me deficient in common sense and self-control—not morbid, or very apt to be run away with ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... but it may be untied," returned the Scot, with a sneer on his hard features. "No need of Alexander and his sword to cut the rope, I'm thinking, when we bring common sense to bear on the point. What is the matter to be ascertained? Why, the place which was agreed on as the point of rendezvous between this Rawl Eevart and his people. Now, this arrangement must have been made orally, or in writing; if orally, testimony to the words uttered will not be hearsay, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... And this is Plato's reply, both in the Cratylus and Sophist. 'Theaetetus is flying,' is a sentence in form quite as grammatical as 'Theaetetus is sitting'; the difference between the two sentences is, that the one is true and the other false. But, before making this appeal to common sense, Plato propounds for our consideration a theory of the nature of ...
— Sophist • Plato
... She'll hate me for it, but we've got to use common sense. There's nothing we can do for Professor Brandon this trip. Maybe we can come ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... of arbitration is very fine for the one who is in the wrong. Suppose a set of employees refuse to work any longer unless their wages are doubled. The employer, knowing it means his ruin, refuses, and the strikers demand that the dispute shall be referred to arbitration. Is that just?—is it common sense?" ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... his modest preface to the "Lessons," that he can hardly pretend to have done more than to organize and put into form the average thinking of those who read his books, and be only claims for his essays that they possess the quality of common sense. He herein pays a very high compliment to the crowd which demands over the bookseller's counter so many thousands of his volumes. Wisdom, admirably put, is not a commodity glutting the market every day. We find in the pages of this new venture so many healthy maxims and so much excellent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... he felt certain that he saw a tall figure standing out in the moonlight watching the house, but common sense soon suggested that a savage would not stand in so exposed a position, but would be in hiding. Then, too, as minutes passed on and he was able to see that the objects did not move, he became convinced that they were stumps ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... common sense and a physique like yours, you ought to make a good nurse. Take care of your sister," he added almost appealingly, divided between his knowledge of how poor a nurse Miss Madigan was and how impossible it was to tell this to her niece. "She'll be cross and irritable and—even worse than usual," he ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... added to the fact that she was nervous and overwrought, as well as physically tired out, rendered her unable to use her really good judgment and common sense. ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... you think there is any common sense in that?" blurted out the boy, twisting himself in his chair so he could get a better look ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... names of the four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet, are, perhaps, in the course of some weeks, firmly fixed in the pupil's memory. So much the worse; all these names will disturb him, if he have common sense, and at every step must stop his progress. To begin with the vowels: each of these have several different sounds, and, consequently, ought to have several names, or different signs, to distinguish them in different circumstances. ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... the officer as they proceeded on their walk, "listen to the reason of the thing, and consider whether such a custom can obtain, as that which they term the duello, in any country of civilization and common sense, to say nothing of one which is blessed with the domination of the most rare Alexius Comnenus. Two great lords, or high officers, quarrel in the court, and before the reverend person of the Emperor. They dispute about a ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... half an hour, papa. And I would like to know where you and Odalite have been gadding to without saying a word to anybody. And I would like also to know—oh! how I should like to know—what has come to everybody in the house, that nobody but Elva and I and Miss Meeke have any common sense left!" exclaimed Wynnette, ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... job to take Paris if the Parisians keep to their present mood. Mr. Washburne told me yesterday that he does not think he shall leave. There is to be a consultation of the Corps Diplomatique to-morrow, under the presidency of the Nuncio, to settle joint action. I admire the common sense of Mr. Washburne. He called two days ago upon the Government to express his sympathy with them. Not being a man of forms and red tape, instead of going to the Foreign-office, he went to the Hotel de Ville, found a Council sitting, shook hands ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... differentiation of vowels; and this may prove to be in some cases the practical solution, but it is not now the point in discussion, for no one will deny that such delicate distinctions are both inconvenient and dangerous, and should only be adopted if forced upon us. I shall assume that common sense and universal experience exonerate me from wasting words on the proof that homophones are mischievous, and I will give my one example in a note[8]; but it is a fit place ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... instrument back to Vale's position. His hands shook, though a part of his mind insisted obstinately that alarms were commonplace these days, and in common sense one had to treat them as false cries of "Wolf!" But one knew that some day the wolf might really ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... graver profession. Every now and then some of its members seem to lose common sense and common humanity. The laymen have to keep setting the divines right constantly. Science, for instance,—in other words, knowledge,—is not the enemy of religion; for, if so, then religion would mean ignorance. But it is often the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... a list of the characters in the play and the names of those supposed to be lampooned, analyzes the piece thoroughly, and says, "From internal evidence, it must be inferred that the writing of the play was finished after the publication of 'Common Sense' in January, 1776, and before the news had reached Philadelphia of the evacuation of Boston, March 17, 1776." Though Sabin takes for granted that Leacock wrote "The Fall of British Tyranny," Hildeburn, in the ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... months longer, his liberty would have been his own, unbought. Leaving the carver's shop Chantrey began to study in earnest. He painted a few portraits, which brought him in a little money, and, with a little more borrowed from his friends, he started for London. Here, guided by common sense, he sought employment as an assistant carver. He might have starved had he started as ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... sheltered under the words "further discussion of Item 5" a good deal of consideration of various suspicions based on reason and common sense. Most members of the committee, in fact, had their suggestions to make; in committee people always felt they could speak more freely than in the Assembly, and did so. Bolshevist refugees, bands of marauding Poles disbanded from General Zeligowski's ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... the Squire, "against the rules Of common sense you're surely sinning; This leap is for us all too bold; [22] Who Peter was, let that be told, And start from the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... same common sense of Chaucer's a thing more remarkable yet: namely, that with his knowledge of Latin and of French, and living in a circle where those two languages were in great favour, he wrote solely in English. His prose, like his verse, his "Treatise on the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... must fulfil your vow to your country; but all industry and earnestness will be useless unless they are consecrated by your resolution to be in all things men of honour; not honour in the common sense only, but in the highest. Rest on the force of the two main words in the great verse, integer vitae, scelerisque purus. You have vowed your life to England; give it her wholly—a bright, stainless, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... reason came and took possession of her common sense. Between her father and Elfrida she felt herself a complication. If she could bring herself to consent to her own removal, the situation, she could not help seeing, would be considerably simplified. She read plainly in her father that the finality Elfrida promised had not ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... up under the steel mountain wall where the farm of Kvaerk lay. How any man of common sense could have hit upon the idea of building a house there, where none but the goat and the hawk had easy access, had been, and I am afraid would ever be, a matter of wonder to the parish people. However, it was not Lage Kvaerk who had built the house, so he could hardly be made responsible for its ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... perceive I have to do with a woman of business, one who has that rarest of gifts—common sense. I will be frank. Your esteemed father died possessed of a very large fortune, which to-day is your property as his sole issue and heiress. Under the marriage laws, which I myself think unjust, that fortune ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... evinced by The Botanical Garden and The Loves of the Plants, the latter of which was translated into French in 1800, and into Italian in 1805. His "shrewd and homely mind," his powers of keen observation and strong common sense were revealed in his celebrated work Zoonomia, which was published in two volumes in 1794, and translated into German in 1795-99. He was not a zooelogist, published no separate scientific articles, and his striking and original views on evolution, ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... It will be easier for you to resist temptation, I suppose, if there isn't any audience. Audiences are nuisances. Men have killed each other because they feared the crowd might mistake common sense for the yellow streak." ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... to common sense, had so rapidly fallen away from the national belief, the philosophers pursued the same course. It soon became the universal impression that there was an intrinsic opposition between philosophy and religion, and herein public opinion was not mistaken; the ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... and had been made by a hand accustomed to such labor. Upon this map the precise position of the various departments, headquarters, cannon, &c., were laid down. There could be no shadow of doubt in the mind of any man not stupefied with whiskey, and possessed of common sense, that the details of the attack had been carefully considered by those who were most interested in leading ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... of houses are supreme {9} Proctors are perfect whosoe'er they be; Logic is reason in epitome: Examiners, like kings, can do no wrong; All modern learning is not worth a song: Passive obedience is the rule of right; To argue or oppose is treason quite:{10} Mere common sense would make the system fall: Things are worth nothing; ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... presumptive evidence points clearly to the criminal, and common sense recognises him, justice is at times compelled to acknowledge her defeat, for lack of what the jury consider sufficient proof of guilt. Thus, unhappily, many crimes escape punishment. An old advocate-general said one day that he ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... I like you, Barton; you have a good deal of your brother's common sense, uncommon as that is, and I shall come and see ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... "It is common sense," was the prompt reply. "With all your ability, you could not in six months' time appreciably affect the position either way. Therefore, we choose to have you concentrate the whole of your energies upon one task and one task only. If there is anything of the spy about your mission here, ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and yet, recognising it simply as strength, and knowing what it has to contend with, I am much disposed to tolerate it, whether it tolerate me or no. Human nature, with all its defects, is a wiser thing than the mere common sense of the creatures whose nature it is; and we find in it special provisions, as in the instincts of the humbler animals, for overmastering the special difficulties with which it is its destiny to contend. And the sort of fanaticism ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... these two counts—two only out of eleven—are held defective: they are deficient in that rigorous "certainty" now held requisite to constitute a perfectly legal charge of crime. To the eye of plain common sense—we submit, with the deepest deference, to those who have held otherwise—they distinctly disclose a corpus delicti; but when stretched upon the agonizing rack of legal logic to which they were exposed, it seems that they gave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... commandment, and on my knees, to entreat the said goddess, to touch your bank notes and guineas with her magical multiplying wand. I could offer such a prayer for you, with a better conscience than for most men, because I know that you have never lost that healthy common sense, which regards money only as the means of independence, and that you would sooner than most men cry out, enough! enough! To see one's children secured against want, is doubtless a delightful thing; but to wish to see them begin the world as rich men, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... we'll call it so then," said Arthur with a laugh. "And now we're square again, as we were on the night when we first ate dinner together, for if I saved your life you have certainly saved my common sense." ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... common sense, Those toils to Flecknoe, pr'ythee, tell me whence Does all this mighty mass of dulness spring, Which in such loads thou ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... writers on International Law tacitly assume that the doctrines of their system, founded on principles of equity and common sense, were capable of being readily reasoned out in every stage of modern civilisation. But this assumption, while it conceals some real defects of the international theory, is altogether untenable, so far as regards ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... vice, then, under this judgment, just as the reading of all fictions, fancies, inventions, and romances in all their forms, poetic, dramatic, and narrative. And if the reading is a vice the writing of them, in all common sense, can be no less than murder or arson. If it is a vice to devote time to the reading of novels it must be a crime to professionally pander to and profit by the vice. And if all this is true, what a wonderfully attractive corner that must ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... the absurd, contradictory and demoralizing Dogmas and Mysteries of the Christian Religion. Now first translated from the French of Freret, but supposed to be written by Baron Holbach, author of the System of Nature, Christianity Unveiled, Common Sense, Universal Morality, Natural Morality. R. Carlile, The Deist, etc., Vol. II, 1819, etc. (8vo, pp. 185.) ...
— Baron d'Holbach • Max Pearson Cushing
... had not an idea of her own; and in argument, why, she was as full of holes, twists, and slippery places as the pavement on a frosty night after a thaw. How was conversation possible with a woman? Why, there was nothing in her, neither kindness nor pity nor intellect—not leven common sense. For a fashionable bonnet or one of Spricht's gowns she was capable of stealing, of any trick however dirty; for at bottom the only thing she cares for is dress. To know the strength of this passion a man must have gone, as Paul ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... guilt, maudlin pity for mere death, and dread of the unknown, crowding in cruel rivalry to destroy her weakened self-control, sent her staggering to Dick over ground which seemed to rise and fall like the sea. For she was keeping hold on common sense by the thought that there was something that Dick wanted—what, she had forgotten—but she had it, and ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... ignorant as far as knowledge about the origin of life, etc., is concerned. I am a business girl, drawing a good salary, and have many gentleman and lady friends. I am the oldest child of a large family of moderate means and have been brought up under Christian principles and possess a goodly amount of common sense. I long have been anxious in regard to this important subject but never have asked anyone for advice, shuddering to do so, feeling that if I had a chance to ask a lady with knowledge, as a nurse or some ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... or so, Norwood made a motion to the effect that the Worker committee should be instructed to investigate thoroughly the sources of all funds contributed, and to reject any that did not come from Socialists, or those in sympathy with Socialism. The common sense of the meeting asserted itself, and even the Germans voted for this motion. Sure, let them go ahead and investigate! The Socialist movement was clean, it had always been clean, it had ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... to say to my young readers that common sense is the best teacher in such matters, and that no difference appears to common sense between gambling at cards and ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... you she is a woman, and so of course she must be delicate. Can you not understand common sense? As for the boy, he is my grandson, and if you are not old enough to know how to take care of him, I am. He shall not go. I will not permit it. You are talking nonsense. Go and dress for dinner, or send for the doctor—in short, behave like a ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... with land intensively treated. He shows where the land may be found, what kind we must have, what it will cost, and what to do with it. It is seldom we find so much enthusiasm tempered by so much experience and common sense. The book points out in a practical way the possibilities of a very small farm intensively cultivated. It embodies the results of actual experience and it is intended to be workable in every ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... movements. In fact, the Jesuit had feared for a moment that he might have betrayed himself during his delirium, when he heard himself accused of dark intrigues with Rome; but, after some minutes of reflection, his common sense suggested: "If this crafty Roman knew my secret, he would take care not to tell me so. He has only suspicions, confirmed by my ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... body, and feel its passions if it be spiritual. When did it begin to be, with the body or before, and if it ends with it or not? . . . . The ideas of God and truth are inseparable, and if the one is or is not, if the one is certain or uncertain, the other is necessarily the same. Who knows if the common sense (le sens commun) which we take as a judge of the truth is really this, designed for such a purpose? Who knows what truth is, and how can we be sure of having it without knowing it? Who knows even what Being is, since ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... these questions the common sense of mankind turns to the science of history, whose aim is to enable nations and humanity to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... key to the entrance to the cavern, but no visitor was suffered to pass within without the consent of the bishop of the diocese, and the payment of a heavy fee. Among all the extravagance that was written by visitors about the purgatory, some retained their common sense, and perceived that there was either fraud or hallucination in the visions there ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... flourish in Vogue, I hope your Lordship will think it confined within the bounds of a modest and wholesome Chastisement. That it is a very seasonable one, I believe, every Person will acknowledge. When what is set up for the Standard of Taste, is but just the Reverse of Truth and Common Sense; and that which is dignify'd with the Name of Politeness, is deficient in nothing—but Decency and Good Manners: When all Distinctions of Station and Fortune are broke in upon, so that a Peer and a Mechanick are cloathed in the same Habits, and indulge in the same Diversions and Luxuries: ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... Noble, he was a dear, good, trustworthy lad too; kindly, generous, practical, and industrious; a trifle slow and reserved, perhaps, but full of common sense,—the kind of sense which, after all, ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... contains much information which has not hitherto appeared in book form. It is pleasing to note that the practical part is not crowded out with purely 'practical recipes'. A few typical examples are given, and the rest is left to the common sense and judgment of the printer or works' chemist. Another pleasing feature is the accounts given here and there of the author's own researches on the subject. The work will be of interest to printers of wool generally, and ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... we are to use common sense in every direction respecting a child, the first thing is to strive for its conversion, and there is nothing more potent than family prayers. No child ever gets over having heard parents pray for ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... without any pathos, humorously indeed, in a bright tone full of common sense. And she nodded at him over her toast and water with a chaffing, demure smile. But the Prophet winced and put his hand to ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... a gold tooth or a shoe horn; the remedy in this case consists in IMMEDIATELY feeding the child the proper counter irritant. There is, really, no great mystery about the successful raising of children and with a few common sense principles, such as presented above, any mother may relieve herself of a great deal of useless anxiety. I hope I may be pardoned for a digression here, but I feel very strongly that "today's babies are tomorrow's citizens" and I do ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... prediction and the fulfillment, Bervie persisted in believing that he and Lagarde (or Percy and Lagarde) were yet destined to meet, and resume the unfinished consultation at the point where it had been broken off. Persons, happy in the possession of "sound common sense," who declared the prediction to be skilled guesswork, and the fulfillment manifest coincidence, ridiculed the idea of finding Doctor Lagarde as closely akin to that other celebrated idea of finding the needle in the bottle of hay. But Bervie's obstinacy was proverbial. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... seems so reasonable and simple, that one is apt to underestimate the difficulties which he had to face, and the courage and skill which alone enabled him to overcome them. Seldom has an undertaking been more remorselessly dogged by an adverse fate than that of Anson. Seldom have plain common sense, professional knowledge, and unflinching resolution ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... wonderful that the peasantry lack confidence in the existing order of things after the changes of the last ten years, and the recent assassination of the Home Minister. I did not believe the rumour, for fanaticism, even in its wildest moods, usually owes some allegiance to common sense; but it was disturbing, as I have naturally come to feel a deep interest in Japanese affairs. A few hours later Ito again presented himself with a bleeding cut on his temple. In lighting his pipe—an odious nocturnal practice of the Japanese—he had fallen over the edge of the fire-pot. ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... defended theism. Hume (1711-76) indirectly gave rise to much of the later philosophy, by his acute speculations in behalf of skepticism as to the reality of human knowledge and the foundation of accepted beliefs. Reid (1710-96) rescued philosophy from the attacks of Hume by the doctrine of "common sense," and thus founded the Scottish school of metaphysicians. Among the numerous authors who cultivated both philosophy and theology, particular distinction belongs to Dr. Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), and to Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752) who wrote briefly, but with marked power, on the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... than it is to increase profits by increasing sales. And here let us remark that on this subject, as well as all the other subjects we are writing about in this series of articles, we have in mind the matter of common sense, temperate action. Extremes carry things too far. You must not cut the expenses beyond the point where it seriously interferes ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... synonymous, if paradox were necessarily wisdom, we should be ready to grant that Mr. Tupper is a wise, beautiful and original thinker. But thought, after all, is an affair of mind, and though a man of genius may write what is far more brilliant than common sense ever is, yet no man can utter valuable truth on mortal and prudential subjects, unless he possesses a vigorous and powerful understanding. Now Mr. Tupper's art consists in contriving, not thought, but things ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... seen that the common sense of the speakers shaped crude rumour to suit themselves. Had they left it crude, it would have died. It is upon the nice sense of the probable and possible in talkative men that ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... signal associated with the line at the central office. This use of the hook switch in the case of the common-battery telephone is a good illustration of the principle just laid down as to making all the functions which the subscriber has to perform depend, as far as possible, on acts which his common sense alone tells him he must do. Thus, in the common-battery telephone the subscriber has only to place the receiver at his ear and ask for what he wants. This operation automatically displays a signal at the central office and he does nothing further until the operator inquires for the number that ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... government, we should be guided, I think, by the general results, and not by any abstract rules as to the right or wrong of those institutions or of that form. It might be easy for a German lawyer to show that our system of trial by jury is open to the gravest objections, and that it sins against common sense. But if that system gives us substantial justice, and protects us from the tyranny of men in office, the German will not succeed in making us believe that it is a bad system. When looking into the matter of ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... concern himself with is the bill-of-fare. Eat your bun, and don't make yourself busy about other people's affairs.' Mother's was in some ways a narrow outlook, but she had a great fund of sterling common sense. ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... a number of excellent addresses in England, besides a multitude of after-dinner speeches. Perhaps the best of them was his address at the Coleridge celebration, in which he levelled an attack on the English canonization of what they call "common sense," but which is really a new name for dogmatism. Lowell, if not a transcendentalist, was always an idealist, and he knew that ideality was as necessary to Cromwell and Canning as it was ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... where no wind or clouds are, always enjoying a mild air and clear light, thinking such a place to be fittest for a life of immortal blessedness; while they represent the gods themselves as full of disorder and anger and spite and other passions, which are not becoming even to mortal men of common sense. Those reflections, however, perhaps belong ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... longer, had stood upon the threshold of man-hood, and on one awful night had heard from his father's lips that story which had cast its shadow across his life. Then for the first time had sprung up of some sort of sympathy between them, sympathy which had for its foundation a common hatred, a common sense of deep, unpardonable wrong. The oath which his father had sworn with trembling lips the son had echoed, and in dread of the vengeance of these two, the man against whom they had sworn it cut himself off from his fellows, and skulked in every out-of-the-way corner of Europe, ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ease." Hence she coquets with Lord Foppington (a married man), to mortify Morelove and arouse his jealousy. By the advice of Sir Charles Easy, Lord Morelove pays her out in her own coin, by flirting with Lady Graveairs, and assuming an air of indifference. Ultimately, Lady Betty is reduced to common sense, and gives her heart and hand to Lord Morelove.—Colley ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... should say 't was," cut in Perry Larson, with emphasis. "An' queer ain't no name for it. One minute he'd be talkin' good common sense like anybody: an' the next he'd be chatterin' of coats made o' ice, an' birds an' squirrels an' babbling brooks. He sure is dippy! Listen. He actually don't seem ter know the diff'rence between himself an' his fiddle. We was tryin' ter find out this ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... coaxing. The letter of Sennacherib harps on the same string. It is written in a tone of assumed friendly remonstrance, and lays out with speciousness the apparent grounds for calling trust in Jehovah absurdity. There are no threats in it. It is all an appeal to common sense and political prudence. It marshals undeniable facts. Experience has shown the irresistible power of Assyria. There have been plenty of other little nations which have trusted in their local deities, and what has become of them? Barbarous names ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... where I could make inquiries," I murmured helplessly. I would have been glad to be of use in any way, and would have set off to fetch any man, young or old, for I had the greatest confidence in her common sense. "What made you think of coming to me for that ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... jeremiads. All day long Gervaise moved in the midst of that poverty which he so obligingly spread out. Mon Dieu! he wasn't thinking of himself; he would go on starving with his friends as long as they liked. But look at it with common sense. They owed at least five hundred francs in the neighborhood. Besides which, they were two quarters rent behind with the rent, which meant another two hundred and fifty francs; the landlord, Monsieur Marescot, even spoke ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... conjecture was right, the one event in the past which had appeared to be entirely disconnected with the events that had preceded it was, on the contrary, the one missing link which made the chain complete. Mr. Brock's comfortable common sense instinctively denied that startling conclusion. He looked at Midwinter ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... often said that no kind of sense is so rare as common sense; and this is true, simply because common sense is attainable by all far more, and is a natural gift far less, than most other traits of character. Common sense is the application of Thought to common things, and it is rare because most persons ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... overtaxed; we imbibe all the romantic interest of the place without for a moment losing our hold upon reality. The enchantments of this Moorish paradise become part of our mental possessions, without the least shock to our common sense. After a few days of residence in the part of the Alhambra occupied by Dame Tia Antonia and her family, of which the handmaid Dolores was the most fascinating member, Irving succeeded in establishing himself in a remote and vacant part of the vast pile, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... wait, but goes home to die, and, dying, is supposed—as Wolfram explicitly states—to redeem a sinner who is already redeemed. Her sacrifice is an act of suicidal insanity due to her lacking the common sense to reflect that Tannhaeuser might arrive with the second contingent; it is foolish ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... down-east home; she knew I would not be anything wonderful, but she had tried to help me make the most of myself and she was satisfied that I had done it. I had education enough to know that I am an ignorant thing (she didn't say thing, however), and I had common sense and a loving heart. I was not to go out into the world as a bread-winner or 'on a mission,' but I was to stay home and make a home for a good man, and to make it such a sweet, lovely home that it was to be like a little heaven. (And then ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... it all (if she had cared to justify herself), under the mystery and the beauty and the wonder, there was the sound, practical common sense of it all. As long as Violet was comfortable with Ranny she would stay with him. But she would not be comfortable if she had too many things to do; and if she became uncomfortable she would leave him; and if she left him Ranny would be unhappy. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... you could never be sure of your count of strokes so as to be positive whether it was eight, nine, ten, or eleven. As to the half and quarter strokes, they were wholly useless unless you chanced to know what was the last hour struck. And then, too, I should like to ask you why, in the name of common sense, it should take twelve times as long to tell you it is twelve o'clock as it does to tell ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... the fourth or fifth time, than in go your hands into your pockets, and you say—No, there's an apple I can't have, so I'll none of these; and, by the way, the apple must be tolerably withered by this time. And you know perfectly well (for you don't lack common sense at a shaking, Roy Richmond), that you're guilty of simple madness in refusing to make the best of your situation. You haven't to be taught what money means. With money—and a wife to take care of it, mind you—you are pre-eminently ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... conquests, and in the morning, when I awake, I still think over my imaginary combats and victories. Now you are well aware that I have no longer one single enemy or rebel in my whole dominions with whom to contend. It is utterly repugnant to justice and common sense, to go to war without any cause. If I were to do so God would be displeased with me, and a severe retribution for my evil deeds would soon overtake me, even in this world, for is it not said that a kingdom governed by falsehood and oppression ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... in itself." In a sense, no doubt, a cause contains all that is contained in its effects; the latter content being potentially present in the former. But to say that a cause already contains actually all that its effects may afterwards so contain, is a statement which logic and common sense alike ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... warm and in protecting one's health. The girl in the smart little jacket could well afford to wear a winter coat over it on the coldest days, and even then she would not swelter from the heat. Really, it is torture for a woman of common sense to go along the shopping district and see her poor, miserable sisters who let comfort fly to the four winds of heaven while they revel madly in appearances. It's all very well, my girls, to look your best. But don't make sacrifices that will injure your health. I'd rather ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... 'It is sober common sense,' I said. 'But you must begin at the right end. First find the race that fears its priests. It is waiting for you—the Mussulmans of Somaliland and the Abyssinian border and the Blue and White Nile. They would be like dried ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... ignorant—the girl had been out among civilized folks and had learned town ways; she was not stupid—she could keep him guessing, and he thought he knew all the quirks of human nature, too. Then why, in the name of common sense, did she take Dewitt and his patronage in this matter-of-fact way, as if it were his everyday business to meet strange employees and take them home to his wife? He glanced at Dewitt and caught a twinkle of perfect understanding in the bright blue eyes of his chief. ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... near, they fell into and effortfully maintained that meaningless, banal, and jerky talk which is the inevitable concomitant of long partings between people who, really caring for each other, can find nothing but commonplaces wherewith to ease their stress of mind. Miss Van Arsdale's common sense came to the rescue. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... this social position, that the girls are so crazy for—but they've never said anything to me about it—can't be bought. In the next breath you urge me to buy it. Phoo! You're a thoughtless, silly woman, Martha, and let your wild ambitions run away with your common sense." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... that the Austrians had evacuated the town, though they still occupied the castle which frowns down upon it. This was the 23rd of March: Novara was fought and lost, Piedmont was powerless to come to the assistance of the people she had commanded to rise. What was to be done? Plainly common sense suggested an honourable compromise with the Austrian commandant, by which he should be allowed to reoccupy the city on condition that no hair of the citizens' heads was touched. This is what Bergamo and the other towns did, nor are they ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... caprice of the world in general, that whatever bears the face of novelty captivates, or rather bewitches, the imagination, and confounds the ideas of reason and common sense. If, for example, a scullion, from the clinking of pewter, shall conceive a taste for the clinking of rhyme, and make shift to bring together twenty syllables, so as that the tenth and last shall have the like ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... wind that she had met some one at the school-house. There she fell ill and was sent home again. Then she wrote that she should marry, or have no peace, wished I was older, and then she could marry me; she did not write much common sense, although it did not strike me so then. She was coming to London to buy things, would say she would call on my mother on the road, but would meet me instead. How she humbugged the young woman who came to town with her, I don't know, but we met at the baudy house, cried nearly ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... the enquiry becomes more abstract he is superseded by Critias (Theaet.; Euthyd.). Socrates preserves his accustomed irony to the end; he is in the neighbourhood of several great truths, which he views in various lights, but always either by bringing them to the test of common sense, or by demanding too great exactness in the use of words, turns aside from them and comes at ...
— Charmides • Plato
... I have no intention of describing fashionable society in the GREAT EMPORIUM of the WESTERN WORLD. Every body understands that it is on the best possible footing—grace, ease, high breeding and common sense being so blended together, that it is exceedingly difficult to analyze them, or, indeed, to tell which is which. It is this moral fusion that renders the whole perfect, as the harmony of fine coloring ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... his life is environed, and if it increases them less in the state of society in which we are actually living, the reason is that some see, hear, touch, and smell for others. A blind man, by himself and without a guide, could not live long. Society is an additional sense; it is the true common sense. ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... "On common sense and experience, sir," returns Mr. Croker, severely; "look at the currency—debased until the dollar is merely a piece of paper. Look at prices—coffee, twenty dollars a pound, and sugar the same. Look at the army starving—the people losing heart—and strong, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... all that I went by," Fischer confessed gloomily. "It was the English Admiralty announcement that did it. Can you conceive," he went on, striking the table with his fist, "any nation at war, with a grain of common sense or an ounce of self-respect, issuing a statement like that?—an apology for a defeat which, damn it all, never happened! Say the thing was a drawn battle, which is about what it really was. It didn't suit the Germans to fight it to a finish. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... be only about L25,000 a year, on the very insufficient ground that the Development Grant has been depleted to defray the loss of flotation of stock for the purposes of land purchase. What, in the name of common sense, has land purchase to do with education? What indissoluble relationship is there between the two that the expenditure upon the one should be made dependent upon the requirements of the other? This niggardly and short-sighted attitude is hardly worthy of one of the richest ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... again; and thinking that I must have learned a vast deal overseas, they were set on having me here and there to fiddle for them. At first I thought no, I could not; there seemed to be only one tune my fiddle would ever play again, and that no dancing tune. But with using common sense, and some talk with Father L'Homme-Dieu, this foolishness passed away, and it seemed the best thing I could do, being in sadness myself, was to give what little cheer I could to others. So I went, and the first time was the worst, and ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... lamp-posts are part of what we call the "interesting character" of a French street. We say of a French street that it is "full of character." As if an English street was not! Such is blindness—to be cured by travel and the exercise of the logical faculty, most properly termed common sense. If one is struck by the magnificence of the great towns of the Continent, one should ratiocinate, and conclude that a major characteristic of the great towns of England is their shabby and higgledy-piggledy slovenliness. It is so. But there ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... with a strong tendency to evil speaking, lying, and slandering; weighted with a grumbling, sour, discontented spirit; weighted with a disposition to vaporing and boasting; weighted with a great want of common sense; weighted with an undue regard to what other people may be thinking or saying of them; weighted with many like things, of which more will be said by-and-by. When that good missionary, Henry Martyn, was in India, he was weighted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... one sees, the ridiculousness of stoicism. Well, then we again affirm, there exist in the heart of unknown Bohemia, similar beings whose poverty excites a sympathetic pity which common sense obliges you to go back on, for if you quietly remark to them that we live in the nineteenth century, that the five-franc piece is the empress of humanity, and that boots do not drop already blacked from heaven, they turn their backs on you ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... sounds, smels, tasts, heat, and all other qualities of exteriour objects, might imprint severall Ideas by means of the senses. How hunger and thirst, and the other interiour passions might also send theirs thither. What ought to be taken therein for common sense, where these Ideas are received; for memory which preserves them; and for fancy, which can diversly change them, and form new ones of them; and by the same means, distributing the animal spirits into the muscles, make the members ...
— A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason - and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences • Rene Descartes
... where such could not yet exist. He does not say, 'You must be sorry for your sins, or you need not come to me:' to be sorry for his sins a man must love God and man, and love is the very thing that has to be developed in him. It is but common sense that a man, longing to be freed from suffering, or made able to bear it, should betake himself to the Power by whom he is. Equally is it common sense that, if a man would be delivered from the evil in him, he must himself begin to cast it out, ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... that he should not wear fine clothes, the third that he should not eat of the spoil and the fourth that he should not put off praying till after the proper period. It is said that there is no wealth more profitable than understanding, and there is no understanding like common sense and prudence, and there is no prudence like piety; that there is no means of drawing near to God like good morals, no measure like good breeding, no traffic like good works and no profit like earning the Divine favour; that there ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton |
