Quotes & Sayings About Community And Love

Join with the Earth and each other, to bring new life to the land, to restore the waters, to refresh the air, to renew the forests, to care for the plants, to protect the creatures, to celebrate the seas, to rejoice in the sunlight, to sing the song of the stars, to recall our destiny, to renew our spirits, to reinvigorate ur bodies, to recreate the human community, to promote justice and peace, to love our children and love one another, to join together as many and diverse expressions of one loving mystery, for the healing of the Earth and the renewal of all life. — Martin Luther King Jr.

So it was in Botswana, almost everywhere; ties of kinship, no matter how attenuated by distance or time, linked one person to another, weaving across the country a human blanket of love and community. And in the fibres of that blanket there were threads of obligation that meant that one could not ignore the claims of others. Nobody should starve; nobody should feel that they were outsiders; nobody should be alone in their sadness. — Alexander McCall Smith

A friend and I prepared a video clip once for a worship service. Our goal was to capture people's responses to the word Christian, so we took a video camera and hit the streets, from the trendy arts district to the suburbs. We asked people to say the first word that came to mind in response to each word we said: "snow," "eagles" (it's Philly), "teenagers," and finally "Christian." When people heard the word Christian, they stopped in their tracks. I will never forget their responses: "fake," "hypocrites," "church," "boring." One guy even said, "used-to-be-one" (sort of one word). I will also never forget what they didn't say. Not one of the people we asked that day said "love." No one said "grace." No one said "community. — Shane Claiborne

Because of the city's fragmentary, far-flung floor plan, accessible almost exclusively by car, there is no collective sense of community, no overarching sense of "we." ... It's a city of transplants ... Everyone moves to LA with plans not to stay. But then we stay. Because somewhere along the way, this Garden of Forking Freeways burrows itself inside our hardened, from-elsewhere hearts, and slowly, we begin to love the place we claimed to hate. Los Angeles is such a misunderstood city... It's a place that's impossible not to ridicule until you...fully appreciate all its endearing inconsistencies. It is ugly, and it is also beautiful. It is fast; it is slow. It is sexy, and it is also smart. — Lilibet Snellings

'Community' is a great show. I love 'Raising Hope' with Martha Plimpton. And I love 'The Middle' - another Chicagoan in there is Neil Flynn, who used to play the janitor in 'Scrubs.' — Jim O'Heir

I don't have to say to you or anyone in our WRESTLING community that we are a small world unto ourselves and there is often a big difference in how much we love and understand each other and how little we're understood or appreciated by people who spend their weekends watching basketball. — John Irving

I think the writers of 'Community' have moved on from my character. I'm pretty sure. I would love to go back on. I had a really good time and I really liked that character, but I don't think it's going to happen. — Eliza Coupe

It is arrogant to pretend to understand everybody, and doing it in order to live with them, or love them-- well. If it depended on understanding, there would not be any communities, or relationships. Worse, if you spend your life waiting to be understood or, something more horrible, waiting for the others to be like you. Well, it is as useless, as always shouting the same word until it means nothing else. — Edward Wells II

Do you love me?"
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. "Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!"
"What do you mean?" Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated.
"Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete," his mother explained carefully.
Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory.
"And of course our community can't function smoothly if people don't use precise language. You could ask, 'Do you enjoy me?' The answer is 'Yes,'" his mother said.
"Or," his father suggested, "'Do you take pride in my accomplishments?' And the answer is wholeheartedly 'Yes.'"
"Do you understand why it's inappropriate to use a word like 'love'?" Mother asked.
Jonas nodded. "Yes, thank you, I do," he replied slowly.
It was his first lie to his parents. — Lois Lowry

Love cannot remain by itself - it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action and that action is service. — Mother Teresa

Jiu Jitsu forges friendships in a way I've never known. Being involved in an art as intimate as this, where bodily connection is a must, the common cultural boundaries of personal space are broken. You will never see more hugs, high fives, and physical expressions of love than on the mats. Ultimately, this proves to be one of the most fulfilling aspects of our pursuit of mastery. Along the way, we learn to love others as we love ourselves. — Chris Matakas

People think that Detroit is this barren wasteland. While there are parts that are not as nice as others, the misconception is not true. It is definitely not a thriving community in Detroit, but it is getting there. There is a lot of heart and love in this city. — Steven Yeun

When a woman understands the uniqueness of the female brain - how to care for it, how to make the most of its strengths, how to overcome its challenges, how to fall in love with it, and ultimately, how to unleash its full power - there is no stopping her. In her personal development, at work, and in her relationships, she can bring the best of herself to her family, her community, and her planet. By contrast, a woman who is not caring optimally for her brain, who is not giving it the full range of nutrients, exercise, sleep, and emotional support that it needs, is squandering her most valuable resource. If you are not taking good care of your brain, you are at a significantly higher risk of brain fog, memory problems, low energy, distractibility, poor decisions, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. — Daniel G. Amen

We have to rise above bad fortune. We have to be in the good and enjoy the good, study and work and adventure and friendship and community and love. — Joshua Prager

Shane was sitting on the curb next to the old, cracked gas pumps, eating a candy bar. Claire plopped down next to him. "Half?" she asked.
"And now I know you're my girlfriend, since you're not afraid to demand community property," he said, and pulled off the uneaten half to hand it over. — Rachel Caine

We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community. — Dorothy Day

It was time to take the best bits from them all and build something delicious: the spirituality of the Hindus, the community spirit and family ties of the Muslims, the ancient wisdom of the Chinese, the love of freedom and equality of the Afro-Caribbeans, the work ethic of the Jews, the bloody-mindedness and wry humour of the Australians, the blarney of the Irish, the passion of the Scots, the unorthodoxy of the Welsh, combined with our own English love of justice, fair play and democracy. Put them all together and you had a vision for the future, a direction, which Bokononism could exploit. — Bernard Hare

I fell in love with acting at a very young age, when I was 9 years old and started doing community theater. As far as wanting to make a profession out of it, I was about 13 or 14. When I first saw Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", when I saw Harrison Ford, I knew I wanted to be in movies. — Guy Wilson

Apostolic and missionary fruitfulness is not principally due to programmes and pastoral methods that are cleverly drawn up and "efficient", but is the result of the community's constant prayer (cf. "Evangelii Nuntiandi," 75). Moreover, for the mission to be effective, communities must be united, that is, they must be "of one heart and soul" (cf. Acts 4:32), and they must be ready to witness to the love and joy that the Holy Spirit instils in the hearts of the faithful (cf. Acts 4:32). — Pope Benedict XVI

I thought that some of the hymns bespoke the true religion of the place. The people didn't really want to be saints of self-deprivation and hatred of the world. They knew that the world would sooner or later deprive them of all it had given them, but still they liked it. What they came together for was to acknowledge, just by coming, their losses and failures and sorrows, their need for comfort, their faith always needing to be greater, their wish (in spite of all words and acts to the contrary) to love one another and to forgive and be forgiven, their need for one another's help and company and divine gifts, their hope (and experience) of love surpassing death, their gratitude. — Wendell Berry

The first thing that has to be said about the biblical gospel of reconciliation, however, is that it begins with reconciliation to God, and continues with a reconciled community in Christ. Reconciliation is not a term the Bible uses to describe 'coming to terms with oneself', although it does insist that it is only through losing ourselves in love for God and neighbour that we truly find ourselves. — John R.W. Stott

Some people may find material chores irksome; they would prefer to use their time to talk and be with others. They haven't yet realized that the thousand and one small things that have to be done each day, the cycle of dirtying and cleaning, were given by God to enable us to communicate through matter. . . . We are all called to do, not extraordinary things, but very ordinary things, with an extraordinary love that flows from the heart of God.

. . . A community which has a sense of work done well, quietly and lovingly, humbly and without fuss, can become a community where the presence of God is profoundly lived. . . . So the community will take on a whole contemplative dimension. — Jean Vanier

The truth, I am convinced, is that there is no longer a poetical audience among the higher class of minds, that moral, political, and physical science have entirely withdrawn from poetry the attention of all whose attention is worth having; and that the poetical reading public being composed of the mere dregs of the intellectual community, the most sufficing passport to their favour must rest on the mixture of a little easily-intelligible portion of mawkish sentiment with an absolute negation of reason and knowledge. — Thomas Love Peacock

We live in a community of people not so that we can suppress and dominate eachother or make each other miserable but so that we can better and more reliably satisfy all life's healthy needs. — Wilhelm Reich

I think our shepherds, our pastors, can take for instance, Chapter Four [of Amoris Laetitia], 'Vive l'amore' ('How to live love'). It's a great catechesis. You can take it chapter by chapter, passage by passage, and work through it in the parish, in the communities. It's a great catechesis on marital and familial love. And I think as pastors, we can use this for our pastoral work. — Christoph Schonborn

I wanted to be part of a high-class scene of musicians. It was half-inspired because I didn't have many friends, and I was hoping that I would meet people and fall in love and start a community around me, the way they used to do in the '60s. — Lana Del Rey

Love, no matter how you come at it, is a huge risk. It makes it easier for me to remember that God will never reject me because I am not good enough and that any community that has His heart will embrace me as I am. Jesus invites us into a community where imperfect people can find acceptance, love, forgiveness, and a new beginning. — Erwin Raphael McManus

I am the symbol of peace,
I am the humanity
I am the symbol of goodness
I am the community
I am the symbol of change
I am the light in darkness
I am the symbol of compassion
I am the soul of kindness
I am the symbol of joyful future
I will bring brightness
I am the symbol of unity and harmony
I will bring happiness. — Debasish Mridha

The best innovations - both socially and economically - come from the pursuit of ideals that are noble and timeless: joy, wisdom, beauty, truth, equality, community, sustainability and, most of all, love. These are the things we live for, and the innovations that really make a difference are the ones that are life-enhancing. And that's why the heart of innovation is a desire to re-enchant the world. — Gary Hamel

Life is to be lived. It doesn't really matter the how and why of things. It matters how you choose to live. I taught you to live life large. Tha's all, Wyatt. Love when you can. Laugh. Sing. And take care of your family and friends and then your community. It's not always easy, but it's good and at the end of it all, you'll be satisfied. — Christine Feehan

Above all we need, particularly as children, the reassuring presence of a visible community, an intimate group that enfolds us with understanding and love, and that becomes an object of our spontaneous loyalty, as a criterion and point of reference for the rest of the human race. — Lewis Mumford

We believe evangelism is more relational than confrontational, more communal than solitary, and is more a beginning point than an end. Evangelism involves not only sharing our faith with others, but also welcoming them into a community and enabling them to begin to grow in their faith. Above all evangelism is about love: God's love for us in Jesus, our love for our neighbor, and the invitation to receive and grow in a new life that is characterized by love. — Hal Knight

I would categorically not rule out that it's not the last season of Community. Does that make sense? I would love nothing more than for Community to have a following on Friday, and to be able to continue it. — Robert Greenblatt

Often, when we are in trouble, or doubting, or struggling, we rely on others to carry us to God. Just as often we must do the carrying, to help friends who are struggling. This is one of the many benefits of organized religion, as we all need others to help us find God. Even though we may disagree with others and find life in a community occasionally annoying and sometimes scandalous, we need others, because the community is one way that we are carried to God, especially when we are too weak to walk to God on our own. But I wondered about the paralyzed man. He may have felt shame for his illness or for being unable to support himself. Maybe his friends carried him in spite of himself. Sometimes when we are too embarrassed to approach God, someone must bring us there - even drag us there. Many times when I am discouraged, demoralized, or angry at God, it is friends who remind me of God's great love and who carry me to God. We cannot come to God without others. — James Martin

If people in a community live only on the level of the human, rational, legalistic and active aspects and symbols of their faith - which give cohesion, security and unity - there is a serious risk of their closing in on themselves and of gradually dying. If, however, their religious faith opens up, on the one hand to the mystical - that is, to an experience of the love of God present in the community and in the heart of each person - and, on the other hand, to what unifies all human beings, especially the poor, the vulnerable and the oppressed, they will then continue to grow in openness. — Jean Vanier

Confession is a difficult Discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated and alone in our sin. We cannot bear to reveal our failures and shortcomings to others. We imagine that we are the only ones who have not stepped onto the high road to heaven. Therefore, we hide ourselves from one another and live in veiled lies and hypocrisy.
But if we know that the people of God are first a fellowship of sinners, we are freed to hear the unconditional call of God's love and to confess our needs openly before our brothers and sisters. We know we are not alone in our sin. The fear and pride that cling to us like barnacles cling to others also. We are sinners together. In acts of mutual confession we release the power that heals. Our humanity is no longer denied, but transformed. — Richard J. Foster

It saddens me to know that I jeopardized the welfare of the kind people of Hawaii, a community that I love and call my home. — Daniel Dae Kim

I've set the vast majority of my books in New England because that's where I live. I love this part of the country the gentle hills, the lush forests, the cycles of the seasons, the ocean, the quiet lakes and rivers that spread across the region. And, then of course, there's that Yankee spirit, which is a combination of optimism and responsibility, rugged individualism and a strong sense of community. I consider myself and my characters very lucky to live in New England. — Judith Arnold

It is an axiom of modern social psychology that the stories that tend to get repeated are the ones that somehow have the potential to strengthen the communities in which they are told, or to enhance the relationship between the teller and the hearer. This principle seems to be reflected in the stories that were handed down from the community around Jesus. Again and again, early Christian stories suggest that virtue is not enough. The lives of families and communities can only really flourish where virtue takes second place to love. — Kate Cooper

I always tell our community that we should attract the people Jesus attracted and frustrate the people Jesus frustrated. It's certainly never our goal to frustrate, but it is worth noting that the people who were constantly agitated were the self-righteous, religious elite, the rich, and the powerful. But the people who were fascinated by him, by his love and grace, were folks who were already wounded and ostracized - folks who didn't have much to lose, who already knew full well that they were broken and needed a Savior. — Shane Claiborne

I think Edward Sharpe's music is counter-cultural music in the strangest sense where you have a time now where love, optimism, hope and community are uncool and not part of the mainstream culture. — Alex Ebert

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. ~Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac — Aldo Leopold

God made you the way He wanted you to be and He does not make mistakes. He has a plan for your life that is much bigger than you can imagine. — Michele Woolley

We've made it private, contained it in family, when its audacity is in its potential to cross tribal lines. We've fetishized it as romance, when its true measure is a quality of sustained, practical care. We've lived it as a feeling, when it is a way of being. It is the elemental experience we all desire and seek, most of our days, to give and receive. The sliver of love's potential that the Greeks separated out as eros is where we load so much of our desire, center so much of our imagination about delight and despair, define so much of our sense of completion. There is the love the Greeks called filia - the love of friendship. There is the love they called agape - love as embodied compassion, expressions of kindness that might be given to a neighbor or a stranger. The Metta of the root Buddhist Pali tongue, "lovingkindness," carries the nuance of benevolent, active interest in others known and unknown, and its cultivation begins with compassion towards oneself. — Krista Tippett

When we feel lonely we keep looking for a person or persons who can take our loneliness away. Our lonely hearts cry out, 'Please hold me, touch me, speak to me, pay attention to me.' But soon we discover that the person we expect to take our loneliness away cannot give us what we ask for. Often that person feels oppressed by our demands and runs away, leaving us in despair. As long as we approach another person from our loneliness, no mature human relationship can develop. Clinging to one another in loneliness is suffocating and eventually becomes destructive. For love to be possible we need the courage to create space between us and to trust that this space allows us to dance together. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Living on the street as a kid changed the way I looked at everything. It was a different time and while it had its dangers, it was nothing like it would be today. It was the Summer of Love and there was a real sense of community among us. We were hippies who looked out for each other instead of trying to rip each other off. We only had to watch out for the police who liked to roust us just on general principles, and the kids who came in from the suburbs to do a little hippie-bashing. — Charles De Lint

I love going to the local market and seeing friends that I grew up with ... and having conversations. I love the community of Bayonne. — Tammy Blanchard

I enjoy a special collegiality among other writers in the thriller community. They call me 'Canada's scariest writer,' and I love that. — Andrew Pyper

If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love community, you will serve your community. If you love money, you will serve your money. And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself. And you will have only yourself. — Stephen Colbert

The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creation. Not to make people with better morals but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friend, is what it really means to be a Christian. — Brennan Manning

If Jesus is the heart of the church, people are the lifeblood. There is a reason He created community and told us to practice grace and love and camaraderie and presence. People soften the edges and fill in the gaps. Friends make up some of the best parts of the whole story. — Jen Hatmaker

Out & Equal is about work. It's about authenticity. It's also about justice. Essentially it's about love, because when you get right down to it, the civil rights movement for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community is really about having the freedom to be who we are, and to love who we love. — Selisse Berry

Every human activity can be put at the service of the divine and of love. We should all exercise our gift to build community. — Jean Vanier

Love is not only the cardinal fact in the individual life, but the most important concern of the community; after all, the way in which the young people of this generation pair off determines the fate of the nation; all the other affairs of the state are subsidiary to that. And we leave it to flushed and blundering youth to stumble on its own significance, with nothing to guide it but shocked looks and sentimental twaddle and base whisperings and cant-smeared examples. — H.G.Wells

Truth is more than trustable knowledge; it is deeply experiential, confessional, and contextual. It should be engaged in a community that he or she lives, embodied in a world beyond the immediate community, and testified at all costs because of the love of God for all. Truth is not possessive, but requires a life that engages the way, the truth and the life as we get clues from John 14:6."
-- Yung Suk Kim, Truth, Testimony, and Transformation: A New Reading of the "I am" Sayings in the Fourth Gospel (Cascade Books, 2013 forthcoming) — Yung Suk Kim

The church works best not as a power center, rather as a countercultural community - in the world but not of it - that shows others how to live the most fulfilled and meaningful life on earth. In modern society that means rejecting the false gods of independence, success, and pleasure and replacing them with love for God and neighbor. — Philip Yancey

It is in fact an orderly community. The green plants are food for the plant eaters, which are food for the predators, and some of those predators are food for still other predators. And what's left over is food for the scavengers, who return to the earth nutrients needed by the green plants. It's a system that has worked magnificently for billions of years. Filmmakers understandably love footage of gore and battle, but any naturalist will tell you that the species are not in any sense at war with one another. The gazelle and lion are enemies only in the minds of the Takers. The lion that comes across a herd of gazelles doesn't massacre them as an enemy would. It kills one, not to satisfy its hatred of gazelles but to satisfy its hunger, and once it has made its kill the gazelles are perfectly content to go on grazing with the lion in the midst. — Daniel Quinn

Indie bookstores love writers as much as they love readers, and there is something about a community store, where you walk in, you feel known, and the delight in books is just infectious. — Caroline Leavitt

Interest and enthusiasm are the wellspring of continually evolving community life: they create bonds which unite us whether we are young or old, nearby or far from each other; they allow human warmth and love to be the formative forces in personal and community life and striving. — Henning Hansmann

I love San Francisco and Brighton has something of San Francisco about it. It's by the sea, there's a big gay community, a feeling of people being there because they enjoy their life there. — Brian Eno

The God of the Bible is the God of liberation rather than oppression; a God of justice rather than injustice; a God of freedom and humanity rather than enslavement and subservience; a God of love, righteousness and community rather than hatred, self-interest and exploitation. — Allan Boesak

I love the academy in terms of the life of the mind and the world of ideas. I also love the streets. I love the churches and mosques and synagogues. I love the trade union centers. I love the community centers. I speak regularly at prisons and so forth. — Cornel West

If we have any hope for survival of the music that we all love, compassion must replace name-calling, fairness must replace greed, and we need to come together as a musical community and try to understand each other's problems. — John Mellencamp

In the PC(USA) Book of Confessions, A Brief Statement of Faith made explicit the equality of all people: "In sovereign love God created the world good and makes everyone equally in God's image, male and female, of every race and people, to live as one community."60 A Brief Statement of Faith also provided clear confessional warrant for the ordination of women, declaring that the Spirit "calls women and men to all the ministries of the Church. — Jack Rogers

And many years later, as an adult student of history, Knecht was to perceive more distinctly that history cannot come into being without the substance and the dynamism of this sinful world of egoism and instinctuality, and that even such sublime creations as the Order were born in this cloudy torrent and sooner or later will be swallowed up by it again ... Nor was this ever merely an intellectual problem for him. Rather, it engaged his innermost self more than any other problem, and he felt it as partly his responsibility. His was one of those natures which can sicken, languish, and die when they see an ideal they have believed in, or the country and community they love, afflicted with ills. — Hermann Hesse

Father Michaels' sermon was mercifully short. He had a reputation for three-minute homilies, tightly written, provocative and insightful. His words centered on the true meaning of Christianity. That is was all about love. Love of God, love of self, love of family, love of community.
Love was a gift. — Dorothea Benton Frank

God hates loneliness, and community is God's answer to loneliness. When we walk alongside other people, we find a community where we learn how to love. — Rick Warren

It is my belief that in our mad world where there is so much pain, rivalry, hatred, violence, inequality, and oppression, it is people who are weak, rejected, marginalized, counted as useless, who can become a source of life and of salvation for us as individuals as well as for our world. And it is my hope that each one of you may experience the incredible gift of the friendship of people who are poor and weak, that you too, may receive life from them. For they call us to love, to communion, to compassion and to community. — Jean Vanier

Restoration ecology is experimental science, a science of love and altruism. In its attempts to reverse the processes of ecosystem degradation it runs exactly counter to the market system, to land speculation, to the whole cultural attitude of regarding the Earth as commodity rather than community. It is a soft-souled science. — Stephanie Mills

As far as the quote-unquote shipping community goes, I love the passion behind anyone who ships Caroline and Klaus. They are very hardcore shippers ... — Candice Accola

You may say that I am just another outdated old man complaining about progress and the changes of time. But, you see, I have well considered that possibility myself, and am prepared o submit to correction by anybody who cares about a community, who can show me how the world is improved by that community's dying. — Wendell Berry

Theatre remains the only thing I understand. It is in the community of theatre that I have my being. In spite of jealousies and fears, emotional conflicts and human tensions; in spite of the penalty of success and the dread of failure; in spite of tears and feverish gaiety this is the only life I know. It is the life I love. — Robert Helpmann

God is love, and that love works through men-especially through the whole community of Christians. — C.S. Lewis

Other and more powerful forms of association have existed, but the major moral and psychological influences on the individual's life have emanated from the family and local community and the church. Within such groups have been engendered the primary types of identification: affection, friendship, prestige, recognition. And within them also have been engendered or intensified the principal incentives of work, love, prayer, and devotion to freedom and order. — Robert A. Nisbet

For a wild child born into a rigid community, the usual outcome is to experience the ignominy of being shunned. Shunning treats the victim as if she does not exist. It withdraws spiritual concern, love, and other psychic necessities from that person. The idea is to force her to conform, or else kill her spirituality and/or to drive her from the village to languish and die in the outback — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Liberation from ego is what we shramanas are seeking, O Exalted One. If I were your disciple, O Venerable One, I'm afraid it might befall me that my ego would be pacified and liberated only seemingly, only illusorily, that in reality it would survive and grow great, for then I would make the teaching, my discipleship, my love for you, and the community of the monks into my ego! — Hermann Hesse

The best way to help the Latino community is to give back. I love giving back; I'm quiet about God and what I do, but we do a lot in the Dominican Republic. — Daddy Yankee

I've written this book to explore and illuminate the lives, values, and experiences of just such people, and to offer a glimpse at how we raise our kids with love, optimism, and a predilection for independence of thought, how we foster a practical, this-worldly morality based on empathy, how we employ self-reliance in the face of life's difficulties, how we handle and accept death as best we can, how and why we do or do not engage in a plethora of rituals and traditions, how we create various forms of community while still maintaining our proclivity for autonomy, and what it means for us to experience awe in the midst of this world, this time, this life. — Phil Zuckerman

The Christian community, therefore, is that community that freely becomes oppressed, because they know that Jesus himself has defined humanity's liberation in the context of what happens to the little ones. Christians join the cause of the oppressed in the fight for justice not because of some philosophical principle of "the Good" or because of a religious feeling of sympathy for people in prison. Sympathy does not change the structures of injustice. The authentic identity of Christians with the poor is found in the claim which the Jesus-encounter lays upon their own life-style, a claim that connects the word "Christian" with the liberation of the poor. Christians fight not for humanity in general but for themselves and out of their love for concrete human beings. — James H. Cone

Everybody would love to be mayor of Chicago. If you look at what we have done over many, many years and where we are today and the commitment by the business community, the commitment by the not-for-profit community - all this coming together - this is a wonderful city. — Richard M. Daley

The problem, Mitch, is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.
But believe me, when you are dying, you see it is true. We all have the same beginning - birth - and we all have the same end - death. So how different can we be?
Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.
Morrie Schwartz — Mitch Albom

Cope's bot can string together notes that weave in and out with the power of Beethoven or the finesse of Mozart. That a machine can produce things of such beauty is threatening to many in the music community. "If you've spent a good portion of your life being in love with these dead composers and along comes some twerp who claims to have this piece of software that can move you in the same way, suddenly you're asking yourself, 'What's happened here?'" Cope says. "I'm messing with some very powerful relationships. — Christopher Steiner

In Buddhism, there are three gems: Buddha, the awakened one; Dharma,
the way of understanding and loving; and Sangha, the community that
lives in harmony and awareness. The three are interrelated, and at
times it is hard to distinguish one from another. In everyone there
is the capacity to wake up, to understand, and to love. So in
ourselves we find Buddha, and we also find Dharma and Sangha. — Nhat Hanh

The love, support, and respect the members of the theater community have for one another is unparalleled. Say what you want about us wacky drama-types, but one thing that makes our business special is our loyalty, our fierce commitment to one another, and our mutual respect. — Monica Raymund

When I see brokenness, poverty and crime in inner cities, I also see the enormous potential and readiness for transformation and rebirth. We are creating an art form that comes from the heart and reflects the pain and sorrow of people's lives. It also expresses joy, beauty, and love. This process lays the foundation of building a genuine community in which people are reconnected with their families, sustained by meaningful work, nurtured by the care of each other and will together raise and educate their children. Then we witness social change in action. — Lily Yeh

City of God interprets all of the human story, from Creation to the Last Judgment, as the drama of divine providence and human free choice, especially the choice between the two most fundamental options of membership in one or the other of the "two cities." The City of God is the invisible community of all who love God; the City of the World is all those who love the world and themselves as their God. — Peter Kreeft

I wrote MARCH FARM because I fell in love with the farms of Bethlehem when I moved here in 2000. I became passionate about preserving farms for many reasons: to secure the open spaces vital for wildlife habitat, to support my community by maintaining its rural beauty, and to honor a way of life that has deep roots in our cultural psyche. — Nancy McMillan

Boo-hoo," said Dr Abbey. "Let me know when you people want to grow a pair and join the scientific community. We're looking for answers. We'd love access to your lab equipment."
"You mean join the mad scientists," spat Kelly, guilt turning into anger in an instant.
"You say potato, I say pass the jumper cables," said Dr Abbey. — Mira Grant

The sooner we give up the illusion that a church must be perfect in order to love it, the sooner we quit pretending and start admitting we're all imperfect and need grace. This is the beginning of real community. — Rick Warren

So I want to identify, if I can, the most important thing that we discover in life. At least, it is the most important thing that I have discovered. I will share it with you, like a precious jewel, fit for this occasion. I refer to love. Love for one another. Love for our community. Love for others everywhere in the world. Love transcends even scholarship, cleverness and university degrees. It is greater than pride and wealth. It endures when worldly vanities fade ... — Michael Kirby

After 20 years of writing in basically a vacuum, I love being part of a community. I've vetted other writers' contracts for them and do publicity for free just because I like a book. Some people think of it as hubris or careerism, but I love to champion books. You can't use your whole sphere of influence just to help yourself. — Jonathan Evison

I love the theater community and theater life, and would love to figure out the distinctive differences between Broadway and the West End. — Chiwetel Ejiofor

Love has won infinitely more converts than theology. The first believers were drawn to Christ's mercy long before they understood His divinity. That brings us back to the overemphasis on Sunday morning as the front door: If love is the most effective way - and the Bible says it is - then how much genuine love can one pastor show an entire congregation? His bandwidth is not wide enough; this is a crippling, impossible burden. When he fails to connect with every person (which he will), the congregation becomes disgruntled because he can't fulfill what should have been their mission. Nor can a random group of strangers standing in a church lobby offer legitimate community to some sojourner who walks in the door. — Jen Hatmaker

Polyamorous people are wary of having others' values inflicted upon themselves, and so tend to stay very far away from making such pronouncements, to the point that they will actively ignore predatory behavior that is affecting their own community. — Anthony D. Ravenscroft

The more we love, the more it hurts, and the more we have to let go. — Mary E. DeMuth

Peace must first be developed within an individual. And I believe that love, compassion, and altruism are the fundamental basis for peace. Once these qualities are developed within an individual, he or she is then able to create an atmosphere of peace and harmony. This atmosphere can be expanded and extended from the individual to his family, from the family to the community and eventually to the whole world. — Dalai Lama

Shame lives in the community, though the community can feel like a courtroom. It says, "You don't belong - you are unacceptable, unclean, and disgraced" because "You are wrong, you have sinned" (guilt), or "Wrong has been done to you" or "You are associated with those who are disgraced or outcast." The shamed person feels worthless, expects rejection, and needs cleansing, fellowship, love, and acceptance. — Edward T. Welch

Love the family! Defend and promote it as the basic cell of human
society; nurture it as the prime sanctuary of life. Give great care to the
preparation of engaged couples and be close to young married couples, so
that they will be for their children and the whole community an eloquent
testimony of God's love. — Pope John Paul II

But most of all he liked to listen to stories of real life. He smiled gleefully as he listened to such stories, putting in words and asking questions, all aiming at bringing out clearly the moral beauty of the action of which he was told. Attachments, friendships, love, as Pierre understood them, Karataev had none, but he loved and lived on affectionate terms with every creature with whom he was thrown in life, and especially so with man- not with any particular man, but with the men that happened to be before his eyes.
But his life, as he looked at it, had no meaning as a separate life. It only had meaning as part of a whole, of which he was at all times conscious. — Leo Tolstoy

Women are concerned about the purity and welfare of the community. ? While the father's love was related to mundane desires, the mother's love was related to spiritual concerns. — Sathya Sai Baba