A Quote by Benjamin Franklin

The problem with common sense is, it isn't.

Benjamin Franklin

Quote Topics

Common Common Sense Problem Sense The Problem With

Quote Author

Benjamin Franklin
American - Politician
January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790

I talked on my blog recently about "uncommon sense." Common sense is called "common" because it reflects cultural consensus. It's common sense to get a good job and save for retirement. But I think we all also have an "uncommon sense," an individual voice that tells us what we're meant to do.

Theodora Goss

Victims recite problems. Leaders develop solutions. That might seem like common sense, but common sense is rarely common practice.

Robin S. Sharma

Mathematics is often erroneously referred to as the science of common sense. Actually, it may transcend common sense and go beyond either imagination or intuition. It has become a very strange and perhaps frightening subject from the ordinary point of view, but anyone who penetrates into it will find a veritable fairyland, a fairyland which is strange, but makes sense, if not common sense.

Edward Kasner

Common sense is science exactly in so far as it fulfills the ideal of common sense; that is, sees facts as they are, or at any rate, without the distortion of prejudice, and reasons from them in accordance with the dictates of sound judgment. And science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

Thomas Huxley

Horses in the Book of Mormon would be another. You have relatively few mentions of horses, but there are some, and we don't know exactly how they were used; they don't seem to be all that common. Were they horses as we understood them, [or] does the term describe some other animal? Languages don't always and cultures don't always classify things the way we would expect. We have what we call common-sense ways of doing it. They're not common sense; they're just ours. But again, we don't have a strong case there. We're just problem solving there.

Daniel C. Peterson

Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humour are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing.

Clive James

I’m a great believer in common sense, and the older I get I see that common sense is not that common

Iris Apfel

Common sense is not something rigid and stationary, but is in continuous transformation, becoming enriched with scientific notions and philosophical opinions that have entered into common circulation. 'Common sense' is the folklore of philosophy and always stands midway between folklore proper (folklore as it is normally understood) and the philosophy, science, and economics of the scientists. Common sense creates the folklore of the future, a relatively rigidified phase of popular knowledge in a given time and place.

Antonio Gramsci

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

William James

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

Clive James

But feeling is so different from knowing. My common sense tells me all you can say, but there are times when common sense has no power over me. Common nonsense takes possession of my soul.

Lucy Maud Montgomery

The problem is that agencies sometimes lose sight of common sense as they create regulations.

Fred Thompson

Stephen Miller did one thing: He simply recited common sense. This is a common sense immigration bill. If there was ever a piece of common sense legislation, this is it. In this case, what Stephen Miller did was nothing more than common sense, and yet it was interpreted - it went right over their heads, the White House press corps, not just Jim Acosta and Glenn Thrush. It went over all of their heads because they didn't understand what he was talking about, either because of the fog of hatred they have for Donald Trump and his administration, or they are just ignorant.