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Quotes of the Day for 10 January 2005 - Common Sense

It was on this day in 1776 that Thomas Paine published a short and readable pamphlet arguing that it was time for the American colonies to break away from Great Britain. He titled this work "Common Sense". It was a powerful work, independence was declared less than six months later. Commons sense is great stuff if you can get your hands on an adequate supply when you need it.

Common sense is not so common.
     - François Marie Arouet (Voltaire), 1694 - 1778

We seldom attribute common sense except to those who agree with us.
     - François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, 1613 - 1680

Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.
     - Josh Billings, 1818 - 1885

Science: a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor.
     - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., 1809 - 1894

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
     - Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 - 1882

Of all things, good sense is the most fairly distributed: Everyone thinks he is so well supplied with it that even those who are the hardest to satisfy in every other respect never desire more of it than they already have.
     - René Descartes, 1595 - 1650

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