Common sense is as rare as genius.
Interpretation
Common sense is uncommon and valuable, much like genius.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the rarity and importance of common sense, suggesting that it is as valuable as exceptional intelligence. He implies that while genius may be celebrated, it is equally essential to recognize the necessity of practical wisdom in daily life.
In practice
During a debate on decision-making, I would quote Emerson to emphasize the value of practical wisdom.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
All the wonders you seek are within yourself. We should seek to discover our own special light. Know how to live within yourself; there in your soul lives a whole world of mysterious and enchanted thoughts; they will be drowned by noise of this world. Be still and listen to their singing and be silent.
Beauty without intelligence is like a hook without bait.
You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you. Things can't shape our decisions by themselves.
Seeking is a necessary preliminary to finding, and one who cannot endure the hardship of inquiry cannot expect to harvest the fruit of knowledge.
The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.
Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.
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