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Communities Quotes

Browse 39 quotes about Communities.

Communities Quotes

“Human beings evolved to live in small bands with people more or less like themselves. But today, many of us live in wonderfully pluralistic societies. In America, Europe, India, and many other places, we're trying to build mass multicultural democracies, societies that contain people from diverse races and ethnicities, with different ideologies and backgrounds. To survive, pluralistic societies require citizens who can look across difference and show the kind of understanding that is a prerequisite of trust—who can say, at the very least, “I’m beginning to see you. Certainly, I will never fully experience the world as you experience it, but I’m beginning, a bit, to see the world through your eyes.”

UnderstandingHuman BeingsGroupsTrustDiversityMulticulturalismPluralismCommunitiesDemocracies
Book:How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
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“Research shows the negative effects of diversity on the United States. Robert Putnam of Harvard studied 41 different American communities that ranged from the extreme homogeneity of rural South Dakota to the very mixed populations of Los Angeles. He found a strong correlation between homogeneity and levels of trust, with the greatest distrust in the most diverse areas. He was unhappy with these results, and checked his findings by controlling for any other variable that might affect trust, such as poverty, age, crime rates, population densities, education, commuting time, home ownership, etc. These played some role but he was forced to conclude that “diversity per se has a major effect.” Prof. Putnam listed the following consequences of diversity: 'Lower confidence in local government, local leaders and the local news media. Lower political efficacy—that is, confidence in their own influence. Lower frequency of registering to vote, but more interest and knowledge about politics and more participation in protest marches and social reform groups. Less expectation that others will cooperate to solve dilemmas of collective action (e.g., voluntary conservation to ease a water or energy shortage). Less likelihood of working on a community project. Lower likelihood of giving to charity or volunteering. Fewer close friends and confidants. Less happiness and lower perceived quality of life. More time spent watching television and more agreement that “television is my most important form of entertainment.”' Other research confirms that people in “diverse” workgroups—not only of race but also age and professional background—are less loyal to the group, more likely to resign, and generally less satisfied than people who work with people like themselves. Carpooling is less common in racially mixed neighborhoods because it means counting on your neighbors, and people trust people who are like themselves.”

RaceTrustDiversityHomogeneityCommunities
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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“We ought to, as human beings, have the courage to seek a collective “truth” that benefits our species the most, and to accept that all of our doctrines and beliefs may just be incomplete. That we don’t know it all and that perhaps we never will. That others like us may have something to teach us, and we may have something to contribute to their communities. That communities, types of people, are divisions we’ve created for ourselves. That for all of what we know, the knowledge and wisdom that we have gathered in the few millennia may be a small fraction of what is there to be discovered, understood and applied.”

PeopleWisdomTruthUnderstandingCommunityKnowledgeTeachCourageKnowingAcceptanceHumanDiscoverySpeciesLearnKnowDiscoverAcceptCompleteBenefitCollectiveContributeCommunitiesApplyBeings
Book:The Things We Don't Know
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“The police are required to enforce the law in areas where they do not live, do not eat, do not go to the barbershop. They have no interaction with the people in that community except when they are called to resolve an issue. To bridge the gap we must establish relationships with the people and communities we serve. If we don’t we will continue to have biases that grow and fester and create deadly situations.”

RelationshipsSocietySecurityRespectLaw EnforcementBiasesPolice OfficersCommunitiesTraffic Stops
Author:Bobby F. Kimbrough, Jr.
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“The greater puzzle of universal wisdom and beauty that we have strived to honor through our work includes the profound legacies of world artistic and spiritual traditions, the innate integrity of human communities where people seek to live in social harmony, and that regenerative stream of life sustained upon the earth itself as it spins through the cosmos to the music of the spheres.”

ArtWisdomBeautyCreativityCommunitiesWork EthicsSpiritual PhilosophyNational Poetry MonthSocial HarmonyWorld Poetry DayAberjhaniArt BooksMusic Of The SpheresLuther E VannSpiritual TraditionsLives Of Artists
Book:Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love
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“The process of categorisation is as old as men, yet as old as man alone, for no other animal species categorises itself so neatly. Yet the ultimate, most vulnerable and weakest victim of categorisation is empathy. Categorisation is a process that destroys the very empathy that enlivens communities: the empathy that traditionally binds diverse communities together.”

EmpathyVictimCity LifeEmpathy For OthersEmpathy QuotesCommunitiesCategorisation
Book:Us vs Them: A Case for Social Empathy
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“It is the integrative synergy of the arts, based on cultural traditions and current trauma-informed practice, that is requisite to addressing traumatic stress with most children, adults, families, groups, and communities.”

ChildrenHealingAdultsFamiliesArtsCulturalCommunitiesTraumatic StressTrauma Informed
Book:Trauma and Expressive Arts Therapy: Brain, Body, and Imagination in the Healing Process
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“This process taught us to test and challenge the prevailing wisdom about the paucity of African American artifacts. What we discovered was a paucity of effort and creativity rather than a scarcity of collections. I hope that our efforts will spur other institutions to embrace community-driven collecting and commit the resources to look inside the basements and garages for material that was once deemed less important to the interpretive agenda of museums. Not every cultural organization will discover items from Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, or Marian Anderson, but every museum that makes the effort will find discover items from Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, or Marian Anderson, but every museum, but every museum that makes the effort will find objects that document the lives, the work, the resiliency, and the dreams of their community.”

HistoryCollectionsMuseumsAfrican AmericansBlacksCollectingAfrican American HistoryCommunities
Book:A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump
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“Even as individuals become families and families become communities, and communities become nations, so eventually must the nations draw together in peace.”

HumanityNationsPeaceInternational RelationsBiographyMothers And DaughtersIndividualsCommunitiesC A Dawson ScottLiterary AssociationsMrs SapphoPen American CenterPen International
Book:Mrs Sappho: The Life of C.A. Dawson Scott, Mother of International P.E.N.
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“Political historian Barouth Regorab had likened the difference between a planetary government and the Galactic Senate to that between a rural community and a metropolis: “When a person depends upon their neighbor for assistance during the harvest—when strangers are few and familial ties bind the farmer to the freighter captain—the greatest danger is shunning or exile. Mollifying your peers becomes a matter of survival. You have an incentive to iron out differences, or if necessary to bury any radical beliefs that would put you at odds with your community. “In a city of millions, however, a person may build a tailor-made community inside the larger organism. Anger your neighbor and you may move in with a friend. Become an outcast among your co-workers and you may take a job with a competitor. Diverse arts and philosophies may flourish without the flattening effect of more tight-knit communities, and differences may be celebrated. Yet a lack of common ties can also cause neighbors to see one another as rivals. Ideological opponents can be dismissed without need for engagement. And good people may slip through the cracks, lost in the chaos and written off as someone else’s problem.”

GovernmentDifferencesSocietySenatePolitical PhilosophyStar WarsCity LifeStar Wars QuoteCommunitiesVillage Life
Author:Alexander Freed
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“Democracy is not simply a license to indulge individual whims and proclivities. It is also holding oneself accountable to some reasonable degree for the conditions of peace and chaos that impact the lives of those who inhabit one’s beloved extended community.”

PeaceLeadershipDemocracyHuman RightsImmigrationVotingAccountabilityPolitical PhilosophyPeace On EarthLeadership CharacteristicsCivil DisobedienceRight To VoteGun ViolenceCivic DutyPresidential ElectionDemocratic ProcessSustainable LivingPolice ReformPolitical TheoryGun LawsPolitical RightsCommunitiesPolitical CommentaryCivic ResponsibilityBeloved CommunityPolitical ArtPostered Poetics By AberjhaniCivic VirtueEmigrantsNational History Day2016 Presidential RaceLeadership TheoryPolice CultureDiscourse On A Better WorldPolitical ChaosPolitical EthicsPracticing DemocracyDiscourse On DemocracyDiscourse On FreedomEditorials On DemocracyPolitical PoetsPolitical PostersTeaching Democracy
Book:Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays
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“Citizens hold a powerful tool: the ability to choose civility at the ballot box. That choice has ripple effects. When we elect leaders who practice self-control, respect & collaboration, we get stronger communities.”

DemocracyCivilityElectionsLocal GovernmentCommunitiesBallot BoxChoose CivilityCivic Leaders
Book:Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community & What to Do About It
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“Unlike most models of interpersonal networks, the one presented here is not meant primarily for application to small, face-to-face groups or to groups in confined institutional or organizational settings. Rather, it is meant for linkage of such small-scale levels with one another and with larger, more amorphous ones. This is why emphasis here has been placed more on weak ties than on strong. Weak ties are more likely to link members of different small groups than are strong ones, which tend to be concentrated within particular groups. [...] The major implication intended by this paper is that the personal experience of individuals is closely bound up with larger-scale aspects of social structure, well beyond the purview or control of particular individuals. Linkage of micro and macro levels is thus no luxury but of central importance to the development of sociological theory. Such linkage generates paradoxes: weak ties, often denounced as generative of alienation, are here seen as indispensable to individuals' opportunities and to their integration into communities; strong ties, breeding local cohesion, lead to overall fragmentation. Paradoxes are a welcome antidote to theories which explain everything all too neatly.”

SociologyAlienationSocial DevelopmentEquality Of OpportunitySocial NetworksCommunitiesSocial MobilitySocial CohesionStrong TiesWeak Ties
Book:The Strength of Weak Ties
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“I understand that you are learning new things, seeing a different way of life and because you are you, you're full of enthusiasm. But let the mother you think knows nothing and is pretty much useless tell you this: people are just people. Nobody is a bigger saint than the next one; they just hide their true selves better. Sooner or later, you'll figure out for yourself that this community you're madly in love with and want so much to be a part of is just like the rest of the world.”

PeopleCommunitiesTrue Selves
Book:An Unorthodox Match
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“The kind of static and segmental thinking which regards problems and issues as separate and apart unto themselves logically trips itself into the pitfall of a second fundamental fallacy. It is inevitable that this type of mental isolation, which fails to observe the relationships between problems, would and does lack a pragmatic understanding of the functional relationship between a local community and the larger social scene. It reveals a complete lack of recognition of the obvious fact that the life of each neighborhood is to a major extent shaped by forces which far transcend the local scene. It requires nothing more than plain common sense to realize that many of the problems in a local community which seemingly have their roots in the neighborhood in reality stem from sources far removed from the community. To a considerable extent these problems are the result of vast destructive forces which pervade the entire social scene. It is when these forces impinge upon the local community that they give rise to a definite community problem. It should, thus, always be remembered that many apparently local problems are in reality malignant microcosms of vast conflicts, pressures, stresses and strains of the entire social order.”

RelationshipsCause And EffectSocial OrderSystemsCommunities
Book:Reveille for Radicals
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“Social cohesion is a necessity, and mankind has never yet succeeded in enforcing cohesion by merely rational arguments. Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition, on the one hand; and on the other hand, dissolution, or subjection to foreign conquest, through the growth of individualism and personal experience that makes cooperation impossible”

PoliticsCommunitiesSocial Cohesion
Book:A History of Western Philosophy
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