. . . even in houses commonly held to be 'booky' one finds, nine times out of ten, not a library but a book-dump.
The silence of a friend commonly amounts to treachery. His not daring to say anything in our behalf implies a tacit censure.
We must recognize that the attempt to set forth the temporal course commonly referred to as the "evolution of mankind" is merely an attempt to structure events for convenient accessibility. Consequently, we must exclude from our discussion as far as possible such misleading notions as "development" and "progress. "
We do not commonly find men of superior sense amongst those of the highest fortune.
It is commonly thought that everything that is can be put into words.
There is not a more prudent maxim, than to live with one's enemies as if they may one day become one's friends; as it commonly happens, sooner or later, in the vicissitudes of political affairs.
The ability to make witty observations is commonly refered to as "cynism" by people who lack it.
History is the lie commonly agreed upon.
While the dogmatist is harmful, the sceptic is useless. . . ; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or of ignorance. Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought. Instead of saying 'I know this', we ought to say 'I more or less know something more or less like this'. . . . Knowledge in practical affairs has not the certainty or the precision of arithmetic.
In the fight between biology and morality, biology has commonly won in the end.
The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.
What is commonly called friendship is only a little more honor among rogues.
Their origin is commonly unknown; for the practice often continues when the cause has ceased, and concerning superstitious ceremonies it is in vain to conjecture; for what reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain.
Him, who incessantly laughs in the street, you may commonly hear grumbling in his closet.
This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.
There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is never quite at our elbows.
It is commonly believed that the rights of the American people come from the Constitution. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Men commonly couple with their idea of marriage a slight degree at least of sensuality; but every lover, the world over, believesin its inconceivable purity.
Whatever is not commonly seen is condemned as alien.
I will never eat fish eyeballs, and I do not want to taste anything commonly kept as a house pet, but otherwise I am a cinch to feed.
