Quotes About Community

Only the existence of a public realm and the world's subsequent transformation into a community of things which gathers men together and relates them to each other depends entirely on permanence. If the world is to contain a public space, it cannot be erected for one generation and planned for the living only; it must transcend the life-span of mortal men.

In both instances, men have become entirely private, that is, they have been deprived of seeing and hearing others, of being seen and being heard by them. They are all imprisoned in the subjectivity of their own singular experience, which does not cease to be singular if the same experience is multiplied innumerable times. The end of the common world has come when it is seen only under one aspect and is permitted to present itself in only one perspective.

The things of the world become human for us only when we can discuss them with our fellows. We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human.

He did not need to "close his ears to the voice of conscience," as the judgment has it, not because he had none, but because his conscience spoke with a "respectable voice," with the voice of respectable society around him.

Plurality is the condition of human action because we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live.

Humanity is never acquired in solitude, and never by giving one's work to the public. It can be achieved only by one who has thrown his life and his person into the 'venture of the public realm.

Wherever men, women, or children are to be found, whether they be old or young, rich or poor, high or low…ignorant or learned, every individual is seen to be strongly actuated by a desire to be seen, heard, talked of, approved and respected by the people about him and within his knowledge.

In the society founded on Adam man has made himself independent of the Creator. He depends on other persons and not on God. The human race as such originates in Adam and not in the Creator. It has come to be by generation and relates to its source only through all its generations. Based on kinship, the human community is thereby a society from and with the dead; in other words this community is historical.

The Jewish notables (as they were called in the nineteenth century) ruled the Jewish communities, but they did not belong to them socially or even geographically.

We had the whole population against us," Jews hidden by Christian families could "be counted on the fingers of one hand," perhaps five or six out of a total of thirteen thousand—but on the whole the situation had, surprisingly, been better in Poland than in any other Eastern European country.

Loneliness is not solitude. Solitude requires being alone whereas loneliness shows itself most sharply in company with others.

Il y'a des choses qui sont plus fortes que l'individu chez qui on les rencontre ou qui les porte

The calamity of the rightless is not that they are deprived of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, or equality before the law and freedom of opinion, formulas which were designed to solve problems within given communities, but that they no longer belong to any community whatsoever.

Now, if we only had as many casks of butter as there are people here, then I would eat lots of butter!

Chi ha una casa in patria può provare nostalgia, ma chi nulla possiede si sente a casa ovunque.

Servant leadership is about caring for others more than for ourselves. It is about compassion for everyone who serves the group. It enriches everyone, not just those at the top. Servant leadership requires us to sit and weep with those who weep within our organizations. It requires getting down and dirty when hard work has to be done. There is nothing in my organization that anyone does that I should not be willing to do myself if it promotes the good of us all.

When all you've got is nothing, there's a lot to go around.

This was a place where tattoos outnumbered teeth.

They needed some Jews or gays or something to spice things up, to add a bit of theater and a couple of interesting bistros.

Hasidim are more open to change than golfers

Each writer had a bedroom in the main house and a shack or "work cottage" in which to write. We all met up for dinner at night. That was it. There was no Internet, no TV, no phones, yes lights, but no motorcar, not a single luxury.

If you cross the street to avoid a gang of black teens, you're racial profiling; if you don't cross because you're afraid you'll look like a racist, you're racial profiling; if you see the gang and think nothing whatsoever, you're from some planet I've never visited. What

Lorraine fiddled with the unlit cigarette. The moms went back to their inane chatter, though with less enthusiasm. They constantly sneaked glances at Lorraine, as if she were some virus introduced into their suburban life-form with a mission to destroy it.

This neighborhood felt like a part of her. It felt as though some of her DNA was in the blue clapboards and off-white Cape Cods and cracked pavement and small patches of lawn, like she'd been beamed away à la Star Trek but a few of her particles got left behind. Part of her would always be at Thanksgiving at Uncle Tommy and Aunt Eileen's, sitting at the "kids' table," which was a Ping-Pong table with a king-size sheet doubling as a tablecloth.