As Common As Sayings

#1. It always amazed Vimes how Nobby got along with practically everyone. It must, he'd decided, have something to do with the common denominator. In the entire world of mathematics there could be no denominator as common as Nobby.

Terry Pratchett

#2. The world is an increasingly dangerous, troubled place. There are nations that seem to be ungovernable. Nations where violence and religious combat are as common as the sunrise.

Mike Barnicle

#3. I think the voice is an underrated instrument these days and it's easy to make up for lack of ability with effects. I think sometimes people are more wowed with effects than core craftsmanship. Strong voices are not as common as they used to be.

Victoria Legrand

#4. The common prejudice that love is as common as "romance" may be due to the fact that we all learned about it first through poetry. But the poets fool us; they are the only ones to whom love is not only a crucial, but an indispensable experience, which entitles them to mistake it for a universal one.

Hannah Arendt

#5. I'm actually as common as mud. I'm not particularly well read, or bred. But the way I look ... I seem to have this sort of 'aristocratic' demeanor.

Charles Dance

#6. Akrasia [weakness of will] in rational beings is as common as wine in France.

John Searle

#7. Botox is as common as seagulls in Sarasota, but most of the women I know who use the dermatologist's little helper still have full range of expression. Except squinting, of course.

Lisa Daily

#8. The ability to have our own way, and at the same time convince others they are having their own way, is a rare thing among men. Among women it is as common as eyebrows.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

#9. Wait. You have two Ph.D.'s?"
"Yeah." Shane passed it off as if it were as common as having two nipples.

K.A. Mitchell

#10. The term bisexual has ended up as the ugly stepchild of sexuality, in both name and meaning. Its fate is symptomatic of the bisexual's own lot in life: to be as common as can be, but unacknowledged.

Jennifer Baumgardner

#11. People think I have the benefit of a public school education. I have this suave and debonair label, but really, I'm as common as muck.

Charles Dance

#12. I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.

John Taylor Gatto

#13. We're as common as rain. And she was right: to each other, we were as normal and nice as the smell of bread, we were just a family. In a family, even exaggerations make perfect sense; they are always logical exaggerations, nothing more.

John Irving

#14. In some countries the common people are not permitted to read the Bible at all. In ours, it is as common as a newspaper and in schools is read with nearly the same degree of respect.

Noah Webster

#15. Passivity is really a crappy substitute for manhood. But it's as common as facial hair on a hipster, or salmon-breath on a grizzly bear.

Josh Hatcher

#16. Beautiful girls in fairy stories are as common as pebbles on the beach. Magnolia-skinned milkmaids rub shoulders with starry-eyed princesses and, in fact, counting two eyes in each bright-eyed damsel would result in a whole galaxy of twinkling stars.

Eloisa James

#17. Alice was an odd girl, even for Ferenwood, where the sun occasionally rained and the colors were brighter than usual and magic was as common as a frowning parent.

Tahereh Mafi

#18. I see this land flowing with books, Father. Widespread literacy. Books everywhere, as common as they used to be in circulation before the Crossing, affordable even for the poor.

Erika Johansen

#19. In the fifties, no one wore beards. In Eisenhower's day, as in the time of the Founding Fathers, all chins were smooth, while during the Civil War, beards were as common as sepsis.

Donald Hall

#20. Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. It is as common as life.

Henry David Thoreau

#21. I am a face in a trance, evoking duende. My face imbues breath and stuns you with star-spirit. I am grove-face, story-teller face, and dawn-bringer face. A face as common as carrots and celery, called upon as a father to be cook, waiter, servant, and maid.

Jimmy Santiago Baca

#22. Fear of failure is at least as common as the desire for success. In fact, if harnessed properly, it can be the energy that drives the wheel.

Mark McCormack

#23. Failure is unfortunately as common as success.

Sanjay Kumar

#24. Common sense isn't as common as its name implies

Douglas Thompson

#25. We are the laws of chemistry and physics as they have played out here on Earth, and we are now learning that planets are as common as stars. Most stars, as it turns out now, will have planets.

Jill Tarter

#26. Our big goal should be to make connection to the Internet as common as connection to telephones is today.

William J. Clinton

#27. Woman is as common as a loaf of bread, and like a loaf of bread, will rise.

Judy Grahn

#28. Today, antibiotics are as common as a cup of coffee. In the 1950s they were relatively new. Today, over-use has reduced their efficacy but in the 1950s they really were a miracle drug. Sister Monica Joan had never had penicillin before, and responded immediately.

Jennifer Worth

#29. While not as common as they used to be, entire groups of people with what seems like an infinite amount of time on their hands to be angry about something that doesn't even affect them in the slightest, still exist.

Lindsey Ouimet

#30. Welcome to the estrogen vortex, dude, where mindfucks are the norm and understanding them is as common as a fucking unicorn in your front yard.

K. Bromberg

#31. Pain is as common as skin, we all experience it. It unites us all. Fortunately, that's not the whole story.

Michael Gungor

#32. I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes as common as the grass.

Laozi

#33. Like beauty, desperation and fear were as common as breathing.

Dot Hutchison

#34. Behold this little Bane- The Boon of all alive- As common as it is unknown The name of it is Love.

Emily Dickinson

#35. In fact, "talent" is as common as mud; what's rare is the motivation to sit down and actually do something with one's talent, the discipline to do it regularly, and the persistence to stick with it until it's finished.

Patricia C. Wrede

#36. But is it possible to believe in the devil, if one hasn't the slightest belief in God?' Stavrogin laughed out loud.
'Oh yes, entirely possible, that's as common as can be,' Tibon raised his eyes and smiled, too.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#37. When we really understand time travel we may find out it's as common as dirt and has been going on all around us is all kinds of physical processes.

Terence McKenna

#38. Creativity should be an everyday experience. Creativity should be as common as breathing. We breathe, therefore we create.

Erwin Raphael McManus

#39. Thing we ask a servant for is a testimonial to honesty, sobriety and industry; for we soon find out that these are the scarce things, and that geniuses and clever people are as common as rats.

Oscar Wilde

#40. my first recommendation to people in charge of science education is, more money for public libraries and museums. Public libraries and museums ought to be as common as schools.

Freeman Dyson

#41. Mystics were about as common as two-headed unicorns. The few who existed lived apart from the world of men, remaining untainted by influence and corruption. Having a wolf as her best friend demonstrated the sort of wisdom he appreciated.

Michael J. Sullivan

#42. Common sense was not as common as the Deity might wish for. Indeed, not even the angelic choirs were entirely free of a certain vice known as silliness.

Vera Nazarian

#43. Eventually, brain implants will become as common as heart implants. I have no doubt about that.

Miguel Nicolelis

#44. As common as unplanned sex. As uncommon as a planned child.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

#45. The pressure in Hollywood is bigger to look good than in Germany. In Germany, we are more forgiving. Having a personal coach in Germany is not nearly as common as in Hollywood. In Hollywood, I think everyone has a personal trainer.

Sibel Kekilli

#46. Making verses is almost as common as taking snuff, and God can tell what miserable stuff people carry about in their pockets, and offer to all their acquaintances, and you know one cannot refuse reading and taking a pinch.

Mary Wortley Montagu

#47. Death was as true and as common as poverty; yet people never spoke about that, loud out in the streets. It was a word not to be mentioned to ears polite.

Elizabeth Gaskell

#48. Certainly, because the computer and computer language was still not as common as it is today. That's one of the reasons I believe Tron wasn't as popular back then as it is today.

Bruce Boxleitner

#49. Talk of treasure is as common as sand. Truth is not contained in any one grain. One must know how to sift it from the legends and wishes of old men.

Andrew C. Katen

#50. The trail of lime trees outside our building is still a public loo. ... where else are they supposed to go to the toilet in a city where public toilets are about as common as UFO sightings? (pp.281-82)

Sarah Turnbull

#51. Nowadays in pop, there's not a lot of men that are singing big and loud and high - it's not as common as it once was.

Adam Lambert

#52. A man is only as common as his dreams.

Harvey Smith

#53. It's nice that people can call me an artist and it's nice that I can refer to myself as such, but it also kind of separates me from the common man in a way that I don't wish to be, so craftsperson makes me feel a bit more connected.

Matana Roberts

#54. The way, and the only way, to stop this evil is for all the red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be yet; for it was never divided, but belongs to all for the use of each.

Tecumseh

#55. We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language ... We have affection. We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness is about as close to a 'common goal' of nature as I can guess at.

Lewis Thomas

#56. My life isn't theories and formulae. It's part instinct, part common sense. Logic is as good a word as any, and I've absorbed what logic I have from everything and everyone ... from my mother, from training as a ballet dancer, from Vogue magazine, from the laws of life and health and nature.

Audrey Hepburn

#57. The belief in God, is not a matter of common sense or logic or argument, but of feeling. it is as impossible to prove the existence of God as to disprove it. I do not believe in God. I see no need of such an idea .

W. Somerset Maugham

#58. As far as I was concerned men were something you had around the place, not particularly interesting, but quite harmless. I had never shown the slightest feeling for them, and apart from my never wearing a skirt, saw nothing else in common between us.

Jeanette Winterson

#59. We will only begin to forgive when we can look upon the wrongdoers as ourselves, neither better nor worse. We need to remember that we coexist as mortals in the world, together, the wronged and the wrongdoer, and that, in our common humanity, the situation could readily be reversed.

Leo Buscaglia

#60. The editors are committed to nothing save this: to keep common sense as fast as they can, to belabor sham as agreeably as possible, to give civilized entertainment.

H.L. Mencken

#61. Hope gives us a reason to live and to make plans for our future. But common sense gives us knowledge that God has control over our life. Life is a journey. We hope and plan our future as we travel each day.

Ellen J. Barrier

#62. Every portal coming into this country is being attacked by those who would harvest information, both national security secrets and just the common information of private individuals and private individuals. That crime is going on, every day, on a single entity known as the Internet.

Darrell Issa

#63. I do think students in public school (and private) should be required to study the Bible. As a matter of pure education, it's shocking that we [the americans] are not compelled to learn the book, which is the source of our language, our common stories, our political structure, our conflicts.

David Plotz

#64. Van Dusen emphasizes that our common conception of the mentally ill is flawed. The majority of them, he says, are not "raving lunatics" as one might think. "Most of these people have become entangled in inner processes and simply fail to manage their lives well.

Louis Proud

#65. It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?

Isaac Asimov

#66. We must recognize that as the dominant power in the world we have a special responsibility. In addition to protecting our national interests, we must take the leadership in protecting the common interests of humanity.

George Soros

#67. It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong.

Aristotle.

#68. To her mind the Senate was a place where people went to recite speeches, and she naively assumed that the speeches were useful and had a purpose, but as they did not interest her she never went again. This is a very common conception of Congress; many Congressmen share it.

Henry Adams

#69. Economists who have studied the relationship between education and economic growth confirm what common sense suggests: The number of college degrees is not nearly as important as how well students develop cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving ability.

Derek Bok

#70. Before all else, we seek, upon our common labor as a nation, the blessings of Almighty God.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

#71. Hatred grows into insolence when we desire to excel the rest of mankind and imagine we do not belong to the common lot; we even severely and haughtily despise others as our inferiors.

John Calvin

#72. The common people do not judge of vice or virtue by morality or immorality, so much as by the stamp that is set upon it by men of figure.

Roger L'Estrange

#73. I am a very radical person - as radical now as I was when I was younger. So my books all have in common my search for understanding of the terrible world we are living in and ways to change it.

Henning Mankell

#74. One does not expect to be comfortable in prison. As a matter of fact, one's mental suffering is so much greater than any common physical distress that the latter is almost forgotten.

Emmeline Pankhurst

#75. The G7 and former G8 group has always viewed itself as a community of values, the annexation of Crimea, which is a blatant violation of the principles of international law, and the events in eastern Ukraine are serious violations of these common values.

Angela Merkel

#76. Failure in training identifies weaknesses so as to prevent them in the field, because as the common saying goes in the tactical community, "We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training." We live by that code.

Gary J. Byrne

#77. The best fiction is often how we interpret our own lives and what we see as our common due. It is created usually as a means of avoiding reality which, if seriously considered, might negate our ability to strive for what might seem impossible.

Anne Edwards

#78. Any military man will tell you that the way to pull two divided groups together is to give them a common enemy. This is what Hitler did, when he came to power in 1933 as chancellor.

Jodi Picoult

#79. We as people have a purpose here to contribute to the Earth, to contribute to people's goodness and good life.

Common

#80. Politics is noble; it is one of the highest forms of charity, as Paul VI used to say. We sully it when we mix it with business. The relationship between the Church and political power can also be corrupted if common good is not the only converging point.

Pope Francis

#81. For this equilibrium now in sight, let us trust that mankind, as it has occurred in the greatest periods of its past, will find for itself a new code of ethics, common to all, made of tolerance, of courage, and of faith in the Spirit of men.

Albert Claude

#82. We always think of borders as something that separates two peoples but of course they unite them. It's something you have in common, literally.

Don Winslow

#83. The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions -- knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas -- become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use."
~Louis D. Brandeis

Louis D. Brandeis

#84. The common view of marriage as a primitive institution implies in the man more than arbitrary superiority, such as he exercised over the child, which still remained free. The woman's slavery was assumed to be for life.

Henry Adams

#85. God's great love and purposes for us are all worked out in messes in our kitchens and backyards, in storms and sins, blue skies, the daily work and dreams of our common lives. God works with us as we are and not as we should be or think we should be.

Eugene H. Peterson

#86. He said he didn't like my kind and I was filled with the delirious expectation that he would identify me as a common species - that there were others like myself. I controlled my excitement, but he seemed to sense it - his gaze wavered uncertainly.

Steve Aylett

#87. The poor and the low have their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as well as you. "Blessed be nothing," and "The worse things are, the better they are," are proverbs which express the transcendentalism of common life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#88. Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable.(attributed to)

William Shakespeare

#89. Man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need

Thomas Aquinas

#90. Rich in saving common-sense, And, as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

#91. In common with many who have a brain injury, I initially lost my confidence and felt very vulnerable, as if a protective layer of skin had been stripped away.

Maryam D'Abo

#92. The emotions that sustain religious belief are all, in fact, deeply ordinary and deeply recognisable to anybody who has ever made their way across the common ground of human experience as an adult.

Francis Spufford

#93. I regard psychiatry as fifty percent bunk, thirty percent fraud, ten percent parrot talk, and the remaining ten percent just a fancy lingo for the common sense we have had for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, if we ever had the guts to read.

Raymond Chandler

#94. The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. Actually, the three philosophies are barely distinguishable ...

George Orwell

#95. I have found that great people do have in common ... an immense belief in themselves and in their mission. They also have gerat determination as well as an ability to work hard. At the crucial moment of decision, they draw on their accumulated wisdom. Above all, they have integrity.

Yousuf Karsh

#96. Nothing is so common as to imitate one's enemies, and to use their weapons.

Voltaire

#97. What man or woman of common sense now doubts the intellectual capacity of colored people? Who does not know, that with all our efforts as a nation to crush and annihilate the mind of this portion of our race, we have never yet been able to do it.

Angelina Grimke

#98. To speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do is style.

Roger Ascham

#99. There is no art form that has so much in common with film as music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via the intellect.

Ingmar Bergman

#100. So far as the advocates of a constructed international language are concerned, it is rather to be wondered at how much in common their proposals actually have, both in vocabulary and in general spirit of procedure.

Edward Sapir