Marvin Minsky Quotes

I say this often, THINK. There is something in life called common sense. Webster's says common sense is sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts. Perhaps this is why in 1776, Thomas Paine used these words as a title for the most famous pamphlet ever written.

Common sense is calculation applied to life.

I ain't got much education, but I got some sense.

One thing I have seen over and over again in life is that there is virtually no correlation between intelligence and common sense. IQ doesn't seem to translate that way.

Simple truths are a relief from grand speculations.

Common sense is better than genius, and hence its bestowment is more universal.

We owe much to the fruitful meditation of our sages, but a sane view of life is, after all, elaborated mainly in the kitchen.

Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right without them.

Common sense is so very simple but very difficult to grasp.

There are some very general ideas that people can keep in mind; they're kind of truisms. It's only worth mentioning them because they're always denied.

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.

Good sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in practical wisdom.

There's a lot of common sense ... which I feel like we have lost touch with.

I have ideas of subjects and atmospheres that I love. I either want to go in a tougher, stronger direction or do the opposite: simple ballads.

Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.

Our approach has worked for us. Look at the fun we, our managers, and our shareholders are having. More people should copy us. It's not difficult, but it looks difficult because it's unconventional - it isn't the way things are normally done. We have low overhead, don't have quarterly goals and budgets or a standard personnel system, and our investing is much more concentrated than average. It's simple and common sense.

The mind demands rules; the facts demand exceptions.

Do not shun this maxim because it is common-place. On the contrary, take the closest heed of what observant men, who would probably like to show originality, are yet constrained to repeat. Therein lies the marrow of the wisdom of the world.

If I point to anything that makes me who I am, it's that I have a whole lot of common sense. I've got a good mind and a good ability to read people and situations.

There is certainly some chill and arid knowledge to be found upon the summits of formal and laborious science; but it is all round about you, and for the trouble of looking, that you will acquire the warm and palpitating facts of life.

Experience is the best of school masters, only the school fees are heavy.

Common sense among men of fortune is rare.

The World requires at least ten years to understand a new idea, however important or simple it may be.

When you're younger you have so many ideas about yourself; everything is important. It's not when you look back, nothing is that important. It's only life.

In contrast to logic, there is common sense, or still better, the Spirit of Reasonableness.