The inculcation of belief in the real existence of a common purpose is an essential executive function.

Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life.

It is common that once presidents start governing then a lot more substance comes out.

The biblical evidence for the existence of purgatory is, shall we say, ‘creative’, again employing the common theological trick of vague, hand-waving analogy.

I’ll raise my head for the tricolour and I’ll raise my voice for the common people.

In returning I read a very different book, published by an honest Quaker, on that execrable sum of all villanies, commonly called the Slave-trade.

Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.

We want authentic dialogue, not a monologue to gain time, as seen in the past many times; it should be dialogue that seeks the common good.

Even the Italian master in politicks, the subtle and renouned Machiavel acknowledges, that no republic ever yet stood on a stable foundation without satisfying the common people.

I’ll raise my head for the tricolour and I’ll raise my voice for the common people.

He is of low understanding who spends a whole life irked by common worldly matters.

Think not that I have come in quest of common flowers; but rather to bemoan the loss of one whose scent has vanished from the air.

Even if RBI opposed demonetisation, the government would have gone ahead with it. The originally stated targets of note ban are fighting black money, fake currency and corruption. None of these is going to be solved out of the demonetisation exercise. Tell me how? Anytime you do this, it will hurt the common man only.

Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.

The immemorial ingratitude of rulers and commonwealths is proverbial. Especially common is ingratitude to Israel — the People that has achieved so much of eternal worth, but has rarely succeeded in winning gratitude.

There's no escaping it-the world is full of lies. It is safest always to accept what one hears as if it were utterly commonplace and devoid of interest.