“Nature is indeed a specious ward, nay, there is a great deal in it if it is properly understood and applied, but I cannot bear to hear people using it to justify what common sense must disavow. Is not Nature modifed by art in many things? Was it not designed to be so? And is it not happy for human society that it is so? Would you like to see your husband let his beard grow, until he would be obliged to put the end of it in his pocket, because this beard is the gift of Nature?” PeopleIfsHumansArtEndsWould BeGrowsNatureNaturalDealsCommonBearsHusbandUnderstoodCommon SensePocketsJustifyObligedBeardNot HappyHuman SocietyYour Husband Author:Mary Wortley Montagu
“Motherhood, to be sure, receives a great deal of sentimental adulation, but only if it is committed in accordance with rules which have been prescribed by a predominantly masculine society. Per se it is accorded no respect whatever. When it results from a sexual relationship which has been duly sanctioned by organized society, it is holy, no matter how much it may transgress the rules of decency, health, or common sense. Otherwise it is a sin meriting social ostracism for the mother and obloquy for the child - an ostracism and obloquy, significantly enough, in which the father does not share.” IfsMayChildrenDoeHas BeensMatterEnoughMotherFatherSocialSinResultsDealsCommonShareHolyCommittedMotherhoodCommon SenseOrganizedSentimentalMasculineDecencyNo RespectAdulationOstracismSocial Ostracism Author:Suzanne La Follette
“The greatness of common sense, and its title to reverence, appear in this, that it deals with vast complexity, that is, with the innumerable elements of a situation. Common sense discerns and judges a path through this knotted and tangled maze.” DealsCommonSituationPathGreatnessJudgingElementsCommon SenseTitlesComplexityReverenceTangledMazes Author:James Vila Blake