Quotes About Community

White folks don't have to do anything to you specifically. After they do it to a couple of other people that you know about, you are so incapacitated by fear that you ain't no use to the struggle anyhow.

almost doesn't matter what black community you go in now, the problems are exactly the same. The kids are angry. The men are shell-shocked. The women are alone and the drugs are everywhere.

You are right," he had said. "Love is not the word. No one can love his neighbor. Say, rather, 'Know thy neighbor as thyself." That is, comprehend his hardships and understand his position, deal with his faults as gently as with your own. Do not judge him where you do not judge yourself. Madame, this is the meaning of the word love.

If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.

He was part of a whole, a people scattered over the earth and yet eternally one and indivisible. Wherever a Jew lived, in whatever safety and isolation, he still belonged to his people.

I don't know, Pierce. But I do know that when men are frightened and discontented they gather around any man who is not afraid.

To belong to one was to deny himself the privilege of belonging to all.

Americans are citizens from the moment they are born, and not when they become twenty-one years of age. By then, if they have not performed the acts of a citizen in a democracy, it is too late. They remain irresponsible and therefore immature. From the first grade on, the child should be taught his duties as a citizen, and given his voice in municipal matters and then in state and nation.

It is easy to destroy, but it is hard to create. Do not destroy what your brother creates.

The SOUL of a NATION is found in its PEOPLE.

The country she had taken for granted as her own, where she had been born, whose language alone she spoke, had rejected her and despised her.

The idea that there could be one solution to breast cancer- screening, early detection, some universal cure- is certainly appealing. All of us, those who fear the disease, those who live with it, our friends and families, the corporations who swath themselves in pink, wish it were true. Wearing a bracelet, sporting a ribbon, running a race, or buying a pink blender expresses our hopes and that feels good - even virtuous. But making a difference is more complicated than that.

With the global economy in chaos and the environment of the planet at risk, with war raging and suffering escalating, it is time for each of us in our own lives to take the leap and do whatever we can to help turn things around.

Taking the . . . vow to help others implies that instead of holding our own individual territory and defending it tooth and nail, we become open to the world that we are living in. It means we are willing to take on greater responsibility, immense responsibility. In fact, it means taking a big chance. —CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA RINPOCHE

In a nutshell, when life is pleasant, think of others. When life is a burden, think of others. If this is the only training we ever remember to do, it will benefit us tremendously and everyone else as well.

This pattern is what we observe in many difficult situations. For instance, if someone is very ill, everyone pulls together to help, but if the illness goes on for a year or two, people start pulling away because they're not up for that much.

With great kindness and love, out of your own experience of what's possible, you give them the wisdom that somebody else probably gave you the day before when you were miserable. You encourage them not to buy into their self-pity but to realize that it's an opportunity to grow, and that everybody goes through this experience. In other words, the sangha are people committed to helping one another to take off their armor, by not encouraging their weakness

We are all children of the Great Spirit, we all belong to Mother Earth. Our planet is in great trouble and if we keep carrying old grudges and do not work together, we will all die. —CHIEF SEATTLE

Everybody can do something toward creating in his own environment kindly feelings rather than anger, reasonableness rather than hysteria, happiness rather than misery.

I have to move away from organized religion. The toxic confusion and anger I was feeling in church had become too great.

There's tons of anger and angst and peculiarity and eccentricity, and good towns know that that's okay. But towns that are kind of bullshit don't know what to do with all those feelings.

A kinsman in trouble had to be saved, not blamed; anger against a brother was felt in the flesh, not in the bone.

The only person who listens to both sides of an argument is the fellow in the next apartment.

What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our pleasure we have more.