Quotes About Community

effective dependency" and how being able, from "the cradle to the grave," to turn to others for emotional support is a sign and source of strength.

One reason is that we are increasingly living in social isolation.

Strife is better than loneliness." — Irish proverb

Even though we are programmed by millions of years of evolution to relentlessly seek out belonging and intimate connection, we persist in defining healthy people as those who do not need others.

Loving families are the basis of a humane society. As the poet Roberto Sosa writes, "Blessed are the lovers, for theirs is the grain of sand that sustains the center of the seas." The widening circle of engagement with and responsiveness to others does not stop with our immediate loved ones or even with the future families they create. It continues to spread out, to help create more caring communities and, ultimately, a more caring world.

As biologist Frans de Waal points out, "We would not be here today had our ancestors been socially aloof." We have survived by caring and cooperating.

Seeking out and giving support are so vital to human beings that social psychologists Mario Mikulincer and Phil Shaver observe that, rather than being called Homo sapiens, or "one who knows," we should be named Homo auxiliator vel accipio auxilium, or "one who helps or receives help." To be even more accurate, I say we should be called Homo vinculum—"one who bonds.

A person's "heart withers if it does not answer another heart." —Pearl S. Buck

We live in the shelter of each other." —Celtic saying

Robert Putnam notes in his seminal book on the loss of social connection in Western societies, Bowling Alone, "Good socialization is a prerequisite for life online, not an effect of it: without a real world counterpart, Internet contact gets ranty, dishonest and weird." We

Hundreds of studies now show that positive loving connections with others protect us from stress and help us cope better with life's challenges and traumas.

Honeybees depend not only on physical contact with the colony, but also require it's social companionship and support. Isolate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die.

There is no place so awake and alive as the edge of becoming. But more than that, birthing the kind of woman who can authentically say, 'My soul is my own,' and then embody it in her life, her spirituality, and her community is worth the risk and hardship.

Where do you come from?...This is the number one most-asked question in all of South Carolina. We want to know if you are one of us, if your cousin knows our cousin, if your little sister went to school with our big brother, if you go to the same Baptist church as our ex-boss. We are looking for ways our stories fit together.

I wanted to say, Who am I to do this, a woman? But that voice was not mine. It was Father's voice. It was Thomas'. It belonged to Israel, to Catherine, and to Mother. It belonged to the church in Charleston and the Quakers in Philadelphia. It would not, if I could help it, belong to me.

So I taught Sunday school and brought dishes to all manner of potlucks and tried to adjust the things I heard from the pulpit to my increasingly incongruent faith.

The queen, for the most part, is the unifying force of the community, if she removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness.

Egg laying is the main thing, Lily. She's the mother of every bee in the hive, and they all depend on her to keep it going. I don't care what their job is--they know the queen is their mother. She's the mother of thousands.

My mother was a good Catholic -- she went to mass twice a week at St. Mary's in Richmond, but my father was an Orthodox Eclectic.

Up until then I'd thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan.

Women who bear the weight of opposition, she wrote, create a shelter for the rest of us.

Up until then I'd thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan.

I climbed into the honey wagon with my hair uncombed, with May handing me buttered toast and orange juice through the window and Rosaleen sticking in thermoses of water, both of them practically running alongside the truck while August rolled out of the driveway. I felt like the Red Cross springing to action to save the bee queendom.

Ich hatte schon oft gehoert wie Augusta gesagt hatte: Wenn du etwas vom jemanden brauchst dann bau dem anderen eine Bruecke auf der ihr euch begegnen koennt.