Quotes About Community

In the Buddhist view, the king served the people; in the Hindu view, the people served the king. However

The Sabbath is the day on which we learn the art of surpassing civilization.

Only that which is good for all men is good for every man. No one is truly inspired for his own sake. He who is blessed, is a blessing for others.

With information we are alone; in appreciation we are with all things.

The great dream of Judaism is not to raise priests, but a people of priests; to consecrate all men, not only some men.

There is a high cost of living to be paid by a Jew. He has to be exalted in order to be normal in a world that is neither propitious for nor sympathetic to his survival.

Just as man is not alone in what he is, he is not alone in what he does. A mitsvah is an act which God and man have in common.

Yet our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but rather how to remain human in the skyscrapers. NOTES 1 Portions of this section are based on Heschel, Man Is Not Alone (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1951).

The better part of one's life consists of his friendships.

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

The inclination to share thoughts with one another is probably an original impulse of our nature.If in pain I wish to let you know it,and ask your sympathy and assistance;and my pleasurable emotions also,I wish to communicate to,and share with you.

January] 2nd. [1863] When an individual in a church or out of it becomes dangerous to the public interest, he must be checked; but let the churches, as such, take care of themselves.

The more sects we have the better. They are all getting somebody in (to the Church) that the others could not: and even with the numerous divisions we are all doing tolerably well.

The strength of a nation lies in the homes of its people

Advancement—improvement in condition—is the order of things in a society of equals.

If you can't do the skinnin' the least you could do is hold a leg.

Friends stranger

Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted

Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals

He watched the villagers at their work and tried to get to know their ways: how they made their stores and divided them for consumption, how they bred their animals and made tools for the field, plows, harrows, rakes, shovels, as well as weapons, tubs, baskets and the like. He watched them making repairs and improving their houses with saws, hammers, and axes, or bringing wood to their homes by the easier method of using sleighs, or satisfying the other necessities of life in their few trades.

Big writers become a kind of shared climate.

When social spaces begin to be created outside the direct control of the state (including commercial ones, run for profit), civil society can start to flourish in unexpected ways. Learning just to sip alongside a stranger makes for a potable kind of pluralism.