A Quote by Henri Frederic Amiel
Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and is lending oneself to the universal illusion without becoming its dupe.
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Piano playing consists of common sense, heart and technical resources. All three should be equally developed. Without common sense you are a fiasco, without technique an amateur, without heart a machine. The profession does have its hazards.
'Knowledge, without common sense,' says Lee, is 'folly; without method, it is waste; without kindness, it is fanaticism; without religion, it is death.' But with common sense, it is wisdom with method, it is power; with charity, it is beneficence; with religion, it is virtue, and life, and peace.
Becoming a vegetarian is not merely a symbolic gesture. Nor is it an attempt to isolate oneself from the ugly realities of the world, to keep oneself pure and so without responsibility for the cruelty and carnage all around. Becoming a vegetarian is a highly practical and effective step one can take toward ending both the killing of nonhuman animals and the infliction of suffering on them.
True heroism consists in rising superior to misfortune.
For, what is order without common sense, but Bedlam's front parlor? What is imagination without common sense, but the aspiration to out-dandy Beau Brummell with nothing but a bit of faded muslin and a limp cravat? What is Creation without common sense, but a scandalous thing without form or function, like a matron with half a dozen unattached daughters? And God looked upon the Creation in all its delightful multiplicity, and saw that, all in all, it was quite Amiable.
Now that you've reached everything, you must slay this illusion without slaying it - without becoming caught up in the illusion of slaying illusions.
Through being "right", you feel superior and through feeling superior you strengthen your sense of self. In reality, of course, you are only strengthening the illusion of ego.
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.
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
The superior thing ... was to be late. Lateness showed that serene contempt for the illusion we call time which is so necessary to ensure the respect of others and oneself. Only the servile are punctual.
Plato spoke of the necessity for divine madness in the poet. It is a frightening thing to open oneself to this strange and dark side of the divine; it means letting go our sane self control, that control which gives us the illusion of safety. But safety is only an illusion, and letting it go is part of listening to the silence, and to the spirit.
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.
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.
madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom
Belief demands that you dispense with illusion after illusion, while contemporary common sense requires continual, fluffy pretending - pretending that might as well be systematic, it's so thoroughly incentivised by our culture.
It may be said, almost without qualification, that true wisdom consists in the ready and accurate perception of analogies. Without the former quality, knowledge of the past is unobstructive: without the latter it is deceptive.
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