COMMUNITY

"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

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 person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration -- Pearl S. Buck

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

I think it is important that people who are perceived as liberals not be afraid of talking about moral and community values. -- Marian Wright Edelman * The challenge of social justice is to evoke a sense of community that we need to make our nation a better place, just as we make it a safer place. -- Marian Wright Edelman

"I am local, rural, communal. And I find that the whole world is a community. We have made progress in asserting our local community rights globally. We shall continue to do so." -- Tewolde Egziabher

* "With all my heart I believe that the world's present system of sovereign nations can only lead to barbarism, war and inhumanity, and that only world law can assure progress towards a civilized peaceful community." -- Albert Einstein

Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. -- Albert Einstein

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security
-- Albert Einstein

* This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?
-- George Eliot

We now have a global community that calculates how to maximize the benefits for a few at the expense of the majority -- Irene Fernandez

* ...the world is a giant community now. This excuse of distance, time, doesn’t work...We’re all so connected. We can’t spend every second of our lives worrying about another family miles away but we somehow have to factor it in where we can. -- Ralph Fiennes

* “For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people's love and concern for each other.” -- Millard Fuller

Nothing can be defined or derided on the basis of its origin. The important thing is what is done with it and how far a community identifies with something that symbolizes its favourite way of dreaming, living, dancing, playing or loving. This is the positive side of the world: a constant intermingling that produces new responses to new challenges. But because of forced globalization, there’s a clear trend these days towards uniformity. This trend comes largely from the ever-greater concentration of power in the hands of large media groups. -- Eduardo Galeano

* "We have an obligation to ensure that donors do not become isolated from the needs of the public and the community." -- Tracy Gary

* "Average people and the average community can change the world. You can do it just based on common sense, determination, persistence and patience." ~ Lois Gibbs

The first duty of a human being is to assume the right functional relationship to society -- more briefly, to find your real job, and do it.
-- Charlotte Perkins Gilman

* “Whatever community organization, whether it's a women's organization, or fighting for racial justice … you will get satisfaction out of doing something to give back to the community that you never get in any other way.” -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg ..the United States is subject to the scrutiny of a candid world ... what the United States does, for good or for ill, continues to be watched by the international community, in particular by organizations concerned with the advancement of the rule of law and respect for human dignity. -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg

* Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole. -- Vaclav Havel

Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne

* We can dream together a dream of a better world, an ever-renewing, organic-based earth-community. I believe we can achieve a large part of it in our lifetime. ~ Randy Hayes

* “Without community service, we would not have a strong quality of life. It's important to the person who serves as well as the recipient. It's the way in which we ourselves grow and develop.” -- Dorothy Height

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor. -- Hubert Humphrey

* “A world community can only exist with world communication, which means something more than extensive software facilities scattered about he globe. It means common understanding, a common tradition, common idea's and common ideals.” -- Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977)

“A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.”
-- Henrik Ibsen

* When people, land, and community are as one, all three members prosper; when they relate not as members but as competing interests, all three are exploited. By consulting Nature as the source and measure of that membership, The Land Institute seeks to develop an agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned while promoting a community life at once prosperous and enduring." -- Wes Jackson

While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because our neighbors are so many.
-- Lady Bird Johnson

The American city should be a collection of communities where every member has a right to belong. It should be a place where every man feels safe on his streets and in the house of his friends. It should be a place where each individual's dignity and self-respect is strengthened by the respect and affection of his neighbors. It should be a place where each of us can find the satisfaction and warmth which comes from being a member of the community of man. This is what man sought at the dawn of civilization. It is what we seek today.
-- Lyndon B. Johnson

* How do we create a harmonious society out of so many kinds of people? The key is tolerance -- the one value that is indispensable in creating community. -- Barbara Jordan We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done. -- Barbara Jordan

“We have words for racism and sexism, but wealth discrimination isn’t fully recognized. It is a bias in favor of the wealthy and against labor, the environment, and the community. Concern for the public good must become the animating force of our economic order.” -- Marjorie Kelly

* "World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor -- it requires only that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement." -- John F. Kennedy

I am in favor of increased communication and cooperation between countries, but it is more important that each country becomes responsible for its own actions, its own communities, its own economies, before starting to integrate in large regional or global supranational organizations. -- David Korten

* Peace is not just the absence of war, it is the active presence of a capacity for love and compassion, and reciprocity. It is an awareness that our lives are not to be lived simply for ourselves through expressing our individuality, but we confirm the purpose of our lives through the work of expressing our shared sense of community in a purposeful and practical way; to sustain our own lives we sustain the lives of others - in family, in a community of neighborhoods called a city, and in a community of nations called the world. -- Dennis Kucinich

What cannot be achieved in one lifetime will happen when one lifetime is joined to another.
-- Harold Kushner

Internationalism is a community theory of society which is founded on economic, spiritual, and biological facts. It maintains that respect for a healthy development of human society and of world civilization requires that mankind be organized internationally. Nationalities should form the constitutive links in a great world alliance, and must be guaranteed an independent life in the realm of the spiritual and for locally delimited tasks, while economic and political objectives must be guided internationally in a spirit of peaceful cooperation for the promotion of mankind's common interests. -- Christian Lange Today we stand on a bridge leading from the territorial state to the world community. Politically, we are still governed by the concept of the territorial state; economically and technically, we live under the auspices of worldwide communications and worldwide markets. -- Christian Lange

* I also believe that it's almost impossible for people to change alone. We need to join with others who will push us in our thinking and challenge us to do things we didn't believe ourselves capable of. -- Frances Moore Lappe "What an extraordinary time to be alive. We’re the first people on our planet to have real choice: we can continue killing each other, wiping out other species, spoiling our nest. Yet on every continent a revolution in human dignity is emerging. It is re-knitting community and our ties to the earth. So we do have a choice. We can choose death; or we can choose life." -- Frances Moore Lappe

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” ~ Aldo Leopold (American ecologist, 1887-1948) * We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. ~ Aldo Leopold * That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics. ~ Aldo Leopold

* We have come a long way in America because of Martin Luther King, Jr. He led a disciplined, nonviolent revolution under the rule of law, a revolution of values, a revolution of ideas. We’ve come a long way, but we still have a distance to go before all of our citizens embrace the idea of a truly interracial democracy, what I like to call the Beloved Community, a nation at peace with itself. -- John R. Lewis

“The common wish of the international community is for peace instead of war.” -- Li Zhaoxing

"Let us at all times remember that all American citizens are brothers of a common country, and should dwell together in bonds of fraternal feeling." -- Abraham Lincoln * The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds. -- Abraham Lincoln

* Indigenous Peoples have always believed that peace is central to human security and all life forms that exist in a community, a nation, Mother Earth and the universe… -- Hilda Lini

Each of us is a being in himself and a being in society, each of us needs to understand himself and understand others, take care of others and be taken care of himself.
-- Haniel Long

If with so little we have done so much in Brazil, imagine what could have been done on a global scale, if the fight against hunger and poverty were a real priority for the international community. -- Luiz Lula da Silva

…to engage human energy, human skill, and human talent in the service of peace, for the alternative is unthinkable - war, destruction, and desolation; and to build a world community which will stand as a lasting monument to the millions of men and women, to such devoted and distinguished world citizens and fighters for peace as the late Dag Hammarskjold, who have given their lives that we may live in happiness and peace… -- Chief Albert John Lutuli

To enable consensus politics to develop we need to empower people where they live. This means devolving financial resources and political power down to the community level. One of the greatest blocks to movement is fear. This fear can only be removed when people feel their voices are being heard by government and when they have a say in their own lives and communities. -- Mairead Corrigan Maguire

* Every society, all government, and every kind of civil compact therefore, is or ought to be, calculated for the general good and safety of the community. -- George Mason

* “We need artists to help us come together and share our voices and build community around powerful issues concerning our roles in the world and our planet’s survival. Compassion must be translated into action.” -- Natasha Mayers

* Community is as endangered by surplus as it is by deficit. If there is too much money floating around it enables people to have no need of each other. -- Bill McKibben

* Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.
-- Herman Melville

We want to govern with our indigenous ancestors' models: That means a different concept of participation, community work and honesty... -- Evo Morales

But the life that no longer trust another human being and no longer forms ties to the political community is not a human life any longer.
-- Martha Nussbaum

* "If poverty is a disease that infects the entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can't just treat those symptoms in isolation . We have to heal that entire community." -- Barack Obama

"Leave the old and dying America and use your creative energies to help form a new America, which would be demilitarized, more humanistic, where the police are less hostile and closer to the community, where the wealthy are not given unleashed power for the exploitation of the people, and mostly because it's now a matter of life and death, reassert an ecological balance with the environment, which means the people in the oil companies and the car companies and the space industry will have to be brought into account, so there will be a new definition of government which has to be closer to the people and less close to special interests which are far more harmful that any revolutionaries. -- Phil Ochs

We don't accomplish anything in this world alone ... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.
-- Sandra Day O'Connor

We are privileged to have the opportunity of contributing to the achievement of the goal of the abolition of war and its replacement by world law. I am confident that we shall succeed in this great task; that the world community will thereby be freed not only from the suffering caused by war but also through the better use of the earth's resources, of the discoveries of scientists, and of the efforts of mankind, from hunger, disease, illiteracy, and fear; and that we shall in the course of time be enabled to build a world characterized by economic, political, and social justice for all human beings and a culture worthy of man's intelligence. -- Linus Pauling

* There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. -- M. Scott Peck "It is our task—our essential, central, crucial task—to transform ourselves from mere social creatures into community creatures." -- M. Scott Peck

"It is our task—our essential, central, crucial task—to transform ourselves from mere social creatures into community creatures." Although the act of nurturing another's spiritual growth has the effect of nurturing one's own, a major characteristic of genuine love is that the distinction between oneself and the other is always maintained and preserved.
-- M. Scott Peck

Living together is an art.
-- William Pickens

"We try to be a welcoming community for people who are left out in our society. We help people heal and become who God is calling them to be." -- Sister Lucy Poulin

* "A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess." -- A. Philip Randolph

* "I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community. I want something not just to invest in. I want something to believe in." -- Anita Roddick

* The strength of collective decision making and political responsibility is not only a question of recognizing other people's ability. It is also recognizing one's own limitations. -- Aruna Roy

In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness. -- Carl Sagan

If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.
-- Mitsugi Saotome

At a time when everything seems so out of control and the people you've elected are bogus and there's so much random violence and hatred, it fills you with such hope and admiration to even be part for a short time in a community where people have connected to strangers to try to put out a hand. -- Susan Sarandon

Isn't everyone a part of everyone else?
-- Budd Schulberg,

* "I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can." -- George Bernard Shaw "Independence"... middle-class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth. -- George Bernard Shaw

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 Silverstein

* I'm not a politician. I only want to help relieve the suffering in communities, and I want to help people see their community in each other. -- Russell Simmons

* Decent work is at the heart of the search for dignity for the individual, stability for the family and peace in the community -- Juan Somavia

* Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free. -- Starhawk

* “A healthy social life is found only, when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living” -- Rudolf Steiner “In a community of human beings working together, the well-being of the community will be the greater, the less the individual claims for himself the proceeds of the work he has himself done; i.e., the more of these proceeds he makes over to his fellow workers, and the more his own requirements are satisfied, not out of his own work done, but out of work done by the others.” -- Rudolf Steiner

* On this shrunken globe, men can no longer live as strangers. -- Adlai Stevenson

 

I am a part of all that I have met.
-- Lord Tennyson

* "Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better. Interweave all these communities and you really have an America that is back on its feet again. I really think we are gonna have to reassess what constitutes a 'hero'." -- Studs Terkel

“Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.”
-- Howard Thurman (American Theologian, 1900-1981)

You shouldn't get to live in society and give nothing back. People complain about their taxes, yet they do nothing for the community. -- Kathleen Turner

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession. -- Mark Twain

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

* "Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education." -- Alice Waters "I believe that every child in this world needs to have a relationship with the land...to know how to nourish themselves...and to know how to connect with the community around them." -- Alice Waters

* The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, "What are you going through?" -- Simone Weil

* As free citizens in a political democracy, we have a responsibility to be interested and involved in the affairs of the human community, be it at the local or the global level. -- Paul Wellstone

* "There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about." -- Margaret J. Wheatley Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone -- Margaret J. Wheatley

A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.
-- Richard Whately

* This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century -- solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others. -- Elie Wiesel

I still have great faith in democracy. I have great belief in the power of community. ~ Terry Tempest Williams * Despair shows us the limit of our imagination. Imaginations shared create collaboration, collaboration creates community, and community inspires social change. ~ Terry Tempest Williams We have to speak out now on behalf of our community and on behalf of the land and say they're the same thing and say "No, we are not rolling over" and "No, this is not a corporate enterprise." This is democracy in the fullest sense and we must have regard and reverence and those are the cornerstones of a just society. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

* In every community there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it. -- Marianne Williamson

In every community there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart there is the power to do it. -- Marianne Williamson<

* "There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized peace. -- Woodrow Wilson

One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.
-- Virginia Woolf

“When I see brokenness, poverty and crime in inner cities, I also see the enormous potential and readiness for transformation and rebirth. We are creating an art form that comes from the heart and reflects the pain and sorrow of people's lives. It also expresses joy, beauty, and love. This process lays the foundation of building a genuine community in which people are reconnected with their families, sustained by meaningful work, nurtured by the care of each other and will together raise and educate their children. Then we witness social change in action.” -- Lily Yeh

 

 

Community Quotes

COMMUNITY
HERO PIX

Marian Wright Edelman | Aruna Roy | George Bernard Shaw
Rudolf Steiner | Marianne Williamson

Community Day - November 4
Interdependence Day - September 12