Important in life: being intelligent or with common sense?

I agree, some people who are very smart lack common sense. Common sense will get you through the day to day living. Einstein was one of these smart people, so intelligent he was that he lacked any common sense. This is probably why he was a womanizer.

What could be the thin line between intelligent and common sense? I guess it is experience. A person can be intelligent with the help of books. But common sense is something that you gain through your everyday existence and being that observant and vigilant about things and people that surrounds you. So it is just like asking the difference between a bookworm and a street smart. I think I would go with having common sense,all the time, as much as I could have.

if ever i will have a choice, i will want to have both intelligence and common sense. why choose either of them? well, in case i need to choose, then i will have common sense. i know that intelligence can be harnessed and gained through good training and mentoring. but common sense is difficult to acquire since it stems from experience and logical understanding of realities.

After thinking about this for many years, I think common sense is an important thing for a happy life. Those who are very inteligent tend to overthink things, and have brains that constantly need to be stimulaited. But I don't know why you can't be a healthly mixture of both qualities.

Intelligent people make mistakes like any one else now common sense to me is something else! a person who applies common sense to every day life may see a problem before it happens when a person who thinks is intelligent...may be in math or history or what ever may not have a clue how to solve a problem right there and then!

Yes, I like to be the one with common sense. But isn't it chaotic if one is neither intelligent or with common sense? Yes some intelligent people may not have the common sense. ARe you sure they are intelligent or they are just bookish. Leaning on what they have learned from the books and school. The people with common sense are called street smart. And street smart people are more likely to succeed in life than the intelligent ones.

Too intelligent a person can be nerdy . Their academic performance is excellent but that doesn't make them wise in everyday life. I have seen this in my son. He was good in his studies and successful in his career as a geophysics but when it comes to love and simply everyday living like taking s bus to town he couldn't connect. He failed to connect his intelligence with common sense.

Common sense is not 'common', that is the difference. I agree many intelligent people do not have common sense. Those people can do many great things but when they need simple common sense to solve some problem they may get fail. I think applying common sense is something great than the intelligence.

Common sense is what we usually use in life. To many scientists, they have spend too much time and energy on their research so that they act even forget the common sense. While to those who are smart, they usually own both common sense and intelligent, they can make full use of them, which makes take advantage in daily life and loved by other people.

Having known people like that, I have to agree with you. We need both kinds, but for myself, I'd rather have common sense.

hi Shavkat, but in my experience, the real smart person would have a high level of common sense. which means certain things that they claimed to be as common sense, maybe needs a high level of knowledge/education from the others to understand it. i came across someone who can describe certain things easily in details as per his common sense but those points that he pointed out were actually published in books written by several professors. furthermore, this person has never read those books before. for him, those things were common sense, but for others those were knowledge that need to be learnt from education or experience.

Common sense it is!!! I knew someone who is very intelligent in school but in some other situation he does not think twice....

All on earth are not intelligent, all have some kind of common sense, and many are satisfied with what ever they have. For a successful life we must be smart and clever in our dealings always. Thanks for sharing, cheers. MERRY XMAS

Not so sure since we have so many people with different trait and kind. Some might have both of them while the rest might just have one of it.(^^) To have both is a bonus, know to use common sense but not smart is okay, smart but can't use common sense maybe they forgot how to use it. Don't have both- you will be a bug trouble.(^^)

I like to think that both are important to have but if you're just smart and intelligent but without any common sense then you cannot be called truly intelligent. You need to have both to really call yourself a smart person.

The concept of intelligence usually refers to a person's data like speed, response time, and ability. There are elements of these in IQ testing. Most of us would have to experience some type of IQ testing when we're in school to see where we're at. It's not really about knowledge. Common sense, on the other hand, does not seem to require intelligence, but they could or should go along together. We could learn it at school, in the family, and everywhere. Nowadays, technological gadgets like cell phones (mobile phones), iPad, and any new technology seem to erode how some people think. This could extend to other areas like etiquette, manners, etc. I'm not going to go further on this one. You mention about some people that might have received high grades at school and are easily qualified for professional position/jobs. I'm thinking of people that bury themselves in books and hardly interact with people or civilization. It might be easy to judge these people. Hopefully, many would have patience and commitment to confront and correct their thinking. Still, it depends whether this is necessary.

hi, of course i would love to have them both too,i think if you are an intelligent then you will also have common sense,but those all who have common sense are not all intelligent,so meaning that i will not agree that an intelligent person don't have this common sense.

I know some persons who seem to be rather over intelligent but they don't have commonsense, they behave crazy at times lol.

I agree with this to certain point. I am intelligent but I don't always get jokes or when someone is lieing to me because I am so trusting.

I would love to have this two qualities. I can say that these would be one of my assets. Yeah, I agree with you, sometimes, there is a person who are very intelligent but he has no common sense . Maybe he is intelligent because his memory is good but he has no common sense and that must posses by everyone.