Quotes About Community

Periodically Willis's mother would snatch her family's own food off the table and take it round to neighbours, replying to her son's protests: "Stop whining! You're hungry. They're starving!"84

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

Friends have all things in common.

not to care for any of his belongings before caring that he himself should be as good and as wise as possible, not to care for the city's possessions more than for the city itself, and to care for other things in the same way.

This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.

For it is likely that if a city of good men came to be, there would be a fight over not ruling, just as there is now over ruling; and there it would become manifest that a true ruler really does not naturally consider his own advantage but rather that of the one who is ruled.

The perfect state is one where men weep and rejoice over the same things.

And as they have nothing but their persons which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no existence among them; they will be delivered from all those quarrels of which money or children or relations are the occasion. Of course they will. Neither

For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that the men were to be the guardians and watchdogs of the herd. True.

For we cannot suppose that States are made of 'oak and rock,' and not out of the human natures which are in them, and which in a figure turn the scale and draw other things after them? Yes

They will begin by sending out into the country all the inhabitants of the city who are more than ten years old, and will take possession of their children, who will be unaffected by the habits of their parents; these they will train in their own habits and laws, I mean in the laws which we have given them: and in this way the State and constitution of which we were speaking will soonest and most easily attain happiness, and the nation which has such a constitution will gain most. Yes

Friends possess everything in common.

Mas la verdad es, creo yo, lo siguiente: la ciu­dad en que estén menos ansiosos por ser gobernantes quienes hayan de serlo, ésa ha de ser forzosamente la que viva mejor y con menos disensiones que ninguna; y la que tenga otra clase de gobernantes, de modo distinto.

There can be no reward so fitting as maintenance in the Prytaneum

Or do you think it possible for a city not to be destroyed if the verdicts of its courts have no force but are nullified and set at naught by private individuals?

Human beings are largely a product of their social environment.

If everything belongs to everybody, nobody will take care of anything.

The law is not concerned with making any one class in the city do outstandingly well, but is contriving to produce this condition in the city as a whole.

And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world.

Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says;

No debemos necesariamente convenir en que el carácter y las costumbres de un Estado se encuentran en cada uno de los individuos que lo componene, puesto que sólo por medio de ellos han podido pasar al Estado?

Y así, Trasímaco --- dije yo-, nadie que tiene gobierno, en cuanto es gobernante, examina ni ordena lo conveniente para sí mismo, sino lo conveniente para el gobernado y sujeto a su arte, y dice cuanto dice y hace todo cuanto hace mirando a éste y a su conveniencia y ventaja.

Rehúsa nadie enseñar a los demás lo que es justo? ¿Se guarda el secreto de esta ciencia, como se practica con todas las demás? No, sin duda; y la razón es porque la virtud y la justicia de cada particular son útiles a toda la sociedad. He aquí por qué todo el mundo se siente inclinado a enseñar a los demás todo lo relativo a las leyes y a la justicia.

But I'd rather help than watch. I'd rather have a heart than a mind. I'd rather expose too much than too little. I'd rather say hello to strangers than be afraid of them. I would rather know all this about myself than have more money than I need. I'd rather have something to love than a way to impress you.