What is common territory?

Famous quotes containing the words common and/or territory:

    The common consolation which some good christian or other, is hourly administering to himself,—that he thanks God his mind does not misgive him; and that, consequently, he has a good conscience, because he has a quiet one,—is fallacious.
    Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)

    Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)