"We can never get a
re-creation of community and heal our society without giving our citizens a sense
of belonging."
-- Patch Adams
| 
|
 | *
The
good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for
all of us and incorporated into our common life.
-- Jane
Addams |
| In
our hectic, fast-paced, consumer-driven society, it's common to feel overwhelmed,
isolated and alone. Many are re-discovering the healing and empowering role that
community can bring to our lives. The sense of belonging we feel when we make
the time to take an active role in our communities can give us a deeper sense
of meaning and purpose.
-- Robert
Alan |  |
Business,
labor and civil society organizations have skills and resources that are vital
in helping to build a more robust global community.
-- Kofi
Annan *
In
an age where community involvement and partnerships with civil society are increasingly
being recognized as indispensable, there is clearly a growing potential for cooperative
development and renewal worldwide.
-- Kofi
Annan
| 
|
Men
exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.
-- Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus
“Law;
an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community”
-- St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
 | *
A
man not only needs to know how to fish, he needs to have the freedom to do it
and a place to do it. That's where community comes in. We have to help each other,
and we feel government has a very important role therein.
-- Bill
Ayres |
*
As
the world community develops in peace, it will open up great untapped reservoirs
in human nature.
--
Emily Greene Balch
|
|
 | A
community is a group of people who have come together, and they work and they
live to try and improve the standard of living and quality of life - and I don't
mean money.
-- William
Baldwin |
 |
*
Globalization
has not only lost its promise but is embittering many. The forces representing
human solidarity and community have no choice but to step in quickly to convince
the disenchanted masses that, as the banner of the World Social Forum in Porto
Alegre proclaims, 'Another world is possible!'
-- Dr.Walden
Bello |
“It
is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is
the interest of the individual”
-- Jeremy Bentham ( Philosopher 1748-1832)
| *
"The
natural world is the larger sacred community to which we belong. To be alienated
from this community is to become destitute in all that makes us human. To damage
this community is to diminish our own existence."
~ Thomas
Berry |  |
Hear
me, four quarters of the world - a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk
the soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength
to understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.
-- Black Elk, (1863-1950)
| *
We
can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens
or looking out for our neighbors. That is how change takes place in living systems,
not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.
-- Grace Lee Boggs
| 
|
 |
*
We
can build an economy that does not destroy its natural support systems, a global
community where the basic needs of all the Earth’s people are satisfied, and a
world that will allow us to think of ourselves as civilized. This is entirely
doable.
-- Lester
Brown |
How
does one keep from "growing old inside"? Surely only in community. The only way
to make friends with time is to stay friends with people…. Taking community seriously
not only gives us the companionship we need, it also relieves us of the notion
that we are indispensable.
-- Robert McAfee Brown
The
life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another,
until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be
felt.
-- Frederick Buechner
| 
|
Surplus wealth is a sacred
trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good
of the community.
~ Andrew Carnegie
|
No
part of the human community can live entirely on its own planet, with its own
laws of motion and cut off from the rest of humanity.
-- Hugo Chavez
We
were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human
race.
-- Cicero
| Our
mission in this new century is clear. For good or ill, we live in an interdependent
world. We can't escape each other. Therefore, we have to spend our lives building
a global community of shared responsibilities, shared values, shared benefits.
~ Bill Clinton *
Let's
create an integrated global community where we have shared benefits and responsibilities,
and we don't fight because of our differences.
~ Bill
Clinton |  |
 | *
The
old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate peoples must give way
to education for citizenship in the human community.
-- Norman
Cousins |
"The
new education must be less concerned with sophistication than compassion. It must
recognize the hazards of tribalism. It must teach man the most difficult lesson
of all—to look at someone anywhere in the world and be able to see the image of
himself. The old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate peoples must
give way to education for citizenship in the human community. With such an education
and with such self-understanding, it is possible that some nation or people may
come forward with the vital inspiration that men need no less than food. Leadership
on this higher level does not require mountains of gold or thundering propaganda.
It is concerned with human destiny. Human destiny is the issue. People will respond."
-- Norman Cousins
*
"When
we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community
is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities."
- The
Dalai Lama | 
|
*
We
have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution
is love and that love comes with community.
-- Dorothy
Day |  |
 |
Years ago I
recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was
not one bit better than the meanest on the earth. I said then and I say now, that
while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I
am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
-- Eugene
V. Debs |
Now my friends, I am
opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the
natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself
comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the
barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man's business
on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the
ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your
fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked; ''Am I my brother's
keeper?'' That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory
to civilized society. Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation
to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality but by the higher duty
I owe myself. What would you think me if I were capable of seating myself at a
table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow
beings starving to death.
-- Eugene
V. Debs, 1908
There
is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication....
Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience
to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own
attitude toward your experience changing.
-- John Dewey
|  |
No
man is an island...
-- John Donne
...any
man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
-- John Donne
