|
community
- community
2
- community 3
|
|
You don't live in a world all alone.
Your brothers and sisters are here, too.
Albert Schweitzer |
|
|
|
|
Not
until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions
of life
for all people are recognized and accepted as a
common obligation
of all of us. . . shall we be able
to speak of humankind as civilized.
Albert Einstein
|
|
| |
|
People
were formed for society and are neither capable
of
living alone, nor have the courage to do it.
William Blackstone
|
| |
|
Life
does not have meaning through mere existence or
acquisition or
fun. The meaning of life is inherent in the connections we
make to
others
through honor and obligation.
Laura Schlessinger
|
| |
|
This is the true joy of life, the being used
up for a purpose recognized by yourself
as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a
feverish, selfish little clod of
ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not
devote itself to making
you happy. 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. I want to be thoroughly used
up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.
Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a
moment, and I want to
make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to
future generations.
George Bernard Shaw
|
|
| |
|
Many
people do not know that they can strengthen or diminish
the life around them.
The way we live day to day simply may not
reflect back to us our power to influence life or the web of
relationships
that connects us.
Life responds to us anyway.
We all have the power
to affect others.
We may affect those we know and those we do not even
know at all. . . . Without our knowing, we may influence
the lives of others in very simple ways.
Rachel Naomi Remen |
| |
|
Alone we can do so little;
together we can do so much.
Helen Keller
|
| |
|
|
|
quotations
- contents
-
welcome
page
-
obstacles
the
people behind the words
-
our
current e-zine
-
articles
and excerpts
Daily
Meditations, Year One - Year
Two - Year Three
- Year Four
Sign up
for your free daily spiritual or general quotation ~ ~ Sign
up for your free daily meditation
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Quotes on unity and
oneness.
|
|
Each
person takes care that their neighbor shall not cheat
them. But a day comes when we begin to care that we do
not cheat our
neighbors. Then all goes well. We
have changed
our market-cart into a chariot of the sun.
Ralph
Waldo Emerson
|
| |
|
Since
you are an integral
part of a social system,
let every act
of yours
contribute to the harmonization
of social
life. Any action
that is not related directly
or remotely to this social aim
disturbs your life, and
destroys your unity.
Marcus
Aurelius
|
| |
|
The
salvation of humankind lies only in making everything the concern of
all.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
|
| |
|
For nothing is
fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed;
the earth
is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea
does not
cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born,
and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses
they have.
The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to
each other, and children cling to us.
The moment we cease to
hold each other, the moment we break faith
with one another, the sea
engulfs us and the light goes out.
James Baldwin
|
| |
|
Always
follow these two rules:
first, act only on what your reasoning mind proposes
for the good of humanity, and second, change your opinion if someone
shows
you it’s wrong.
This change of mind must proceed only from the conviction that
it’s
both correct and for the common good, but not because it will give you
pleasure and make you popular.
Marcus Aurelius |
| |
The central purpose of each life should be to
dilute the misery in the world.
Karl Menninger |
| |
An old rabbi
once asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended
and the day had begun.
"Could it be,"
asked one of the students, "when you can see an animal in the
distance and tell whether it's a sheep or a dog?"
"No," answered
the rabbi.
Another asked, "Is it
when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it's
a fig tree or a peach tree?"
"No," answered
the rabbi.
"Then when is
it?" the pupils demanded.
"It is when you can
look on the face of any man or woman and see that it is your
sister or brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is
still night."
Hasidic tale |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile
things,
but just look at what they can do when they stick together.
Vesta M. Kelly |
| |
|
Treat
people and live amongst them in such a way so that when you
die they will
cry over you, and while you are alive they long for your
company.
traditional
Muslim saying
|
| |
|
The poor have a role
to play in building a society truly worthy of the
human person--a society in which none ore so poor that they
have
nothing to give and none are so rich that they have nothing to
receive.
John Paul II
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
A
traveler came to the gates of a new city and asked the
gatekeeper, "What kind of people live here?"
The
gatekeeper answered with a question of his own,
"What kind of people lived in the city you just
came from?"
The
traveler replied, "They were mostly a
cantankerous lot, greedy and self-centered."
The
gatekeeper answered, "I expect you will find the
people here just the same."
Soon
after, another traveler met the gatekeeper and asked
the same question. Again the gatekeeper asked,
"How did you find the residents of the city you
visited last?"
The
traveler answered enthusiastically, "They were
warm and hospitable; truly a fine group of
people."
The
gatekeeper responded, "I expect you will find
these folk just the same."
Christina
Feldman
|
|
| |
One exemplary act may affect one life, or even
millions of lives. All those
who set standards for themselves, who strengthen the bonds of
community, who
do their work creditably and accept individual responsibility,
are building
the common future.
John W. Gardner |
| |
|
One
aspect of true community is that we respond to the needs of
another
within our own capabilities. Living in a community
consciously, responsibly,
and actively provides opportunities for growing naturally in
compassion.
Living compassionately in a community means that we care not
only about our
own advancement, materially as well as spiritually, but also
about the well-being
of all members, including those at the bottom. Those at
the so-called bottom
may be far more spiritually rich than those with whom we
aspire to consort. . . .
there is no limit to how we conceive the expanse of community,
only our own thinking.
Michael
Goddart
|
| |
|
|
| |
None
of us come into the world fully formed. We would not
know how to
think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we
learned it
from other human beings. We need other human beings in
order to be human.
I am because other people are.
Desmond Tutu |
| |
|
When there was a
disaster, it used to be that people went to church and
all held hands. Now the minute anything happens they run
to CNN.
Don Hewitt |
| |
|
|
|
community
- community
2
- community 3
|
One of the marvelous
things about community is that it enables us to
welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals.
When
we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we
can
welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps
help them find self-confidence and inner healing.
Jean Vanier
Community And Growth |
|
|
|
The
community stagnates without the impulse of the individual.
The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
William James |
|
|
People
are beginning to realize that self-knowledge is not an end
in itself. It's for the purpose of better relationships,
so that we
can give to our community. You can give from
overflow. It's very
hard to give from emptiness. . . . People who avoid
self-knowledge
cause a great deal of pain to themselves as well as to their
families
and friends.
Jennifer
James
Success Is the Quality of Your Journey |
| |
|
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 |
|
Quotes on unity and
oneness.
|
|
We seldom stop to
think how many people's lives are entwined
with our own. It is a form of selfishness to imagine
that every
individual can operate on his or her own or can pull out
of the general stream and not be missed.
Ivy Baker Priest |
| |
|
|
| |
|
There's
a thread that binds all of us together; pull one end
of the thread, the strain is felt all down the line.
Rosamond Marshall |
| |
|
Our equal
and opposite needs for solitude and community constitute a
great
paradox. When it is torn apart, both of these
life-giving states of being
degenerate into deathly specters of themselves. Solitude
split off from
community is no longer a rich and fulfilling experience of
inwardness;
now it becomes loneliness, a terrible isolation.
Community split off from
solitude is no longer a nurturing network of relationships;
now it becomes
a crowd, an alienating buzz of too many people and too much
noise.
Parker J. Palmer
The Courage to Teach
|
| |
|
There is
nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody.
You built a factory out there--good for you. But I want to be
clear.
You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid
for.
You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were
safe
in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that
the
rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding
bands
would come and seize everything at your factory. . . Now look.
You
built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a
great idea--
God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying
social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay
forward for the next kid who comes along.
Elizabeth Warren |
| |
|
|
We
have some
inspiring and motivational books that may interest you. Our main way of supporting this site is
through the sale of books, either physical copies
or digital copies for your Amazon Kindle (including the
online reader). All of the money that we earn
through them comes back to the site
in one way or another. Just click on the picture
to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and
non-fiction! |
|
| |
My whole life has largely been one of
surprises. I believe that any person's life will
be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of
this kind if one makes up one's mind to do one's level
best each day of his or her life--that is, tries to
make each day reach as nearly as possible the
high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful
living. I pity the person, black or white, who
has never experienced the joy and satisfaction that
come to one by reason of an effort to assist in making
someone else more useful and more happy. It
seems to me that one of the most vital questions that
touch our American life is how to bring the strong,
wealthy, and learned into helpful touch with the
poorest, most ignorant, and humblest, and at the same
time make one appreciate the vitalizing, strengthening
influence of the other. How shall we make the
mansions on yon Beacon Street feel and see the need of
the spirits in the lowliest cabins in Alabama
cottonfields or Louisiana sugar-bottoms?
Booker
T. Washington
Up from Slavery |
|
| |
When the
Stranger says: “What is the meaning of this city?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?”
What will you answer? “We all dwell together
To make money from each other”? or “This is a
community”?
Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger.
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.
T.S. Eliot
The Rock |
| |
|
People
are living books. The real library of life is community.
Bryant McGill
Simple Reminders |
| |
|
The
key to this form of community involves holding a paradox--the
paradox of having relationships in which we protect each
other's
aloneness. We must come together in ways that respect
the
solitude of the soul, that avoid the unconscious violence we
do
when we try to save each other, that evoke our capacity to
hold
another life without dishonoring its mystery, never trying
to coerce the other into meeting our own needs.
Parker J.
Palmer
Let Your Life Speak |
| |
|
|
| |
Individuals
can change things. If everyone will just do their little
part,
then we can make a tremendous difference in the lives of other
people.
Sarah Purcell |
| |
|
I am
dubious as to how far we can move toward global
community--which
is the only way to achieve international peace--until we learn
the basic
principles of community in our own individual lives and
personal
spheres of influence.
M. Scott Peck
The Different Drum |
| |
|
I
am a creature of God and my neighbor is also a creature of
God.
I work in the city and my neighbor lives in the country.
I rise early for my work and my neighbor rises early for work.
Just as my neighbor cannot excel in my work,
I cannot excel in my neighbor's work.
Will you say that I do great things and my neighbor does small
things?
We have learned that it does not matter whether a person does
much or little as long as one directs one's heart to Heaven.
from
the Babylonian Talmud |
| |
|
|
|
|
