"Commonsense" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... What could they do? The very nature of the training of the girls from Wood Gatherer to Torch Bearer made the question, so far as they were concerned, a self-answering one. They had all the broad commonsense rudiments of nursing. With some advanced science on top of ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... British general—" they would persist. "Who's a British general?" I would retort, "I am talking to you merely as a plain commonsense man, with ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... harbour was very marked. Many of the vessels got away before the damage done to the Silverspray's yard and sail became generally known. The captain did not know that anything of the sort had happened until he came down to take the vessel to sea, and being a commonsense sort of man, instead of joining in the chorus of screaming, as his owner was doing, he adjured him to cease wasting time in declaiming against those who ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... acquainted with the country, we much prefer the conversation of the intelligent and unpretending class of farmers, who, though their education has been limited, often possess a rich fund of strong commonsense and liberality of sentiment, and not unfrequently great observation and originality of mind. At the period I refer to, a number of the American settlers from the United States, who composed a considerable part of the population, regarded ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... understood that her secret was Aymer's and it lent her a sense of security and rest to know it, so that when she went to bed she reproached herself for her former childish moods. "I should be glad his strength of purpose and commonsense are so great," she told herself, forgetting love and commonsense were ever ill neighbours. "I am never going to marry, and it would be difficult to say no to him. To-night was just one of the best of times that can ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... The Congress will, however, have presented to it numbers of projects, some of them under the guise of, rather than the reality of, their usefulness in the increase of employment during the depression. There are certain commonsense limitations upon any expansions of construction work. The Government must not undertake works that are not of sound economic purpose and that have not been subject to searching technical investigation, and which have not been given adequate consideration by the Congress. The volume of construction ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Ireland, "Take it, get out of my sight, and be hanged to ye!" Thanks to the Unionist leaders, whose ability and devotion are here warmly recognised, the Dubliners know no fear. The ridiculous abortion has been dragged into the sunlight, and ruthlessly dissected. John's commonsense can be trusted, once he examines for himself, and worthy Irishmen lie down in peace. The graver Dubliners prefer to speak of something else. The young bloods still make fun of the "patriots," and conjure up illimitable vistas of absurd ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... are the two women in A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. Guendolen is the incarnation of high-hearted feminine commonsense, of clear insight into the truth of things, born of the power of love in her. Amid all the weaknesses of the personages and the plot; in the wildered situation made by a confused clashing of pride and innocence and remorse, in which ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... department of ethics more disputed than the meaning of abstract right and wrong, and as I am not talking either on philosophy or ethics I will ask you to accept just such commonsense definitions as can be applied to the business world and that may be usefully employed as a working basis. Commercial morality and honesty are determined by each community for itself in the light of its own special needs ...
— Morals in Trade and Commerce • Frank B. Anderson
... moved afar from isms. They prided themselves on their balance, their commonsense, their fund of comparative ideas. True, some of the women had embraced Christian Science more or less openly, but they did not esteem it necessary to proselyte. Political creeds were but jocularly discussed. To advocate any special belief was to prick one's self down a bore, although ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... And when people blame Bernard Shaw for his pitiless and prosaic coldness, his cutting refusal to reverence or admire, I think they should remember this riff-raff of lawless sentimentalism against which his commonsense had to strive, all the grandiloquent "comrades" and all the gushing "affinities," all the sweetstuff sensuality and senseless sulking against law. If Bernard Shaw became a little too fond of throwing cold water upon prophecies or ideals, remember that he must have passed ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... there will also always be Englishmen unable to appreciate him at all. Such, mutatis mutandis—and in this case the proviso is a very large one—is the position of Beyle in France. After all, when Bunthorne asked for a not-too-French French bean he showed more commonsense than he intended. Beyle is a too-French French writer—too French even for the bulk of his own compatriots; and so for us it is only natural that he should be a little difficult. Yet this very fact is in itself no bad reason ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... purpose will that serve? I have heard the whole story from Lady Porthcawl, from Dale, from that Frenchman—and Heaven knows I have been well coached in Mrs. Devar's antecedents by your Aunt Susan. George, I am surprised that a man of your sound commonsense should permit yourself to be humbugged so egregiously.... Yes, yes, I am aware that an accident led you to take Simmonds's place in the first instance, but can't you see that the Devar creature must have gone instantly on her bended knees—if she ever does pray, which ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... the London and North-Western company, and Findlay, to use his own words, "was taken over with the rest of the rolling stock." This was how his London and North-Western railway career began. He was a tall, portly man of fine presence, distinguished by a large measure of strong, plain, homely commonsense, an absence of prejudice, a great calmness of judgment, and a fearless frankness of speech. His sense of honour was very high, and he impressed upon the service of which he was the executive head that the word ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... are a man like all other men. Passion does not reason, does not calculate; and that is the secret of its strength. As long as we have a spark of commonsense left, we are not really in love. That is so, I tell you; and no will, no amount of energy, can do any thing with it. There are people who tell you soberly that they have been in love without losing their senses, and reproach you for not keeping cool. Bosh! Those ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... really wanted now was perhaps a commonsense female relative to stiffen her mind against fancies and give her a clear-sighted view of the world, but she had none. Philip Berknowles was the last of his race, the few distant connections he had in Ireland lived away in the south and were separated from him by the grand barrier ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... a right, and surely it can't be proper for a woman to deceive a man on such a vital point,' the stern moralist may exclaim. Possibly not, according to the strictly ideal standard of ethics; but, viewed from the larger standpoints of life and of commonsense, this 'deceit' would appear to be advisable. And be assured, my unpleasant moralist (I'm sure you are an unpleasant person), that the sinner will not get off 'scot free,' as you seem to fear. Many and many a stab will be her portion, for memory is a potent poison, and every ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... adventuring, and with him goes Tom, a young worker at Harry's father's soap-boiling factory. Tom is wonderful. He gets Harry out of numerous dire situations, and the book would not work without him. He is down-to-earth, and full of commonsense and energy. ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... while he collected his senses. What did they quarrel about? That sugar! How absurd! He would give it to him—didn't want it himself. And he began scrambling to his feet with a sudden feeling of security. But before he had fairly stood upright, a commonsense reflection occurred to him and drove him back into despair. He thought: "If I give way now to that brute of a soldier, he will begin this horror again to-morrow—and the day after—every day—raise other pretensions, trample on me, torture me, make me his slave—and I will ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... But what we called commonsense views, after all, can be analysed and ought to be analysed. And there is a very sound and practical reason, as Aristotle knew, why men prefer the state to lesser associations. It is because the state leaves them ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... was like to spoil him altogether. Fortunately, his own good sense saved him, helped by the influence of a man who made no pretension of having any influence over anybody, and set nothing before the eyes of the world but a commonsense point of view. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland |
