A community is so much more than people sharing a space. It's a living, breathing network of connections and shared experiences. While it's usually defined as “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common,” true community runs much deeper than that.
Diversity
It doesn’t matter how different we are. What matters in building a community is the desire to live in a peaceful and caring environment, despite all our differences.Good Neighbors
Good Neighbors
When searching for a new place to call home, we hope to stumble upon neighbors who can transform a neighborhood into something meaningful. We all need to be surrounded by people who genuinely care for the well-being of others. Only this type of people can create a community that is more than just a bunch of individuals living next to each other.
It Starts with One
Building a strong community starts with individual contributions, no matter how small. As long as you are kind and willing to help others in need, you’ll be a great community member. In exchange, your community will give you a sense of belonging and the feeling that you are never alone.
Here are 35 quotes on what makes communities special — community service, coming together, engagement, involvement, and support
Quotes about community coming together
One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals.
JEAN VANIER
There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.
MARGARET J. WHEATLEY
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.
HERMAN MELVILLE
There is immense power when a group of people with similar interests gets together to work toward the same goals.
IDOWU KOYENIKAN
Our generation has the ability and the responsibility to make our ever-more connected world a more hopeful, stable and peaceful place.
NATALIE PORTMAN
Quotes about building community
We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race.
CICERO
Some people think they are in community, but they are only in proximity. True community requires commitment and openness. It is a willingness to extend yourself to encounter and know the other.
DAVID SPANGLER
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
KURT VONNEGUT
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
The minute we become an integrated whole, we look through the same eyes and we see a whole different world together.
AZIZAH AL-HIBRI
This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Every person is defined by the communities she belongs to.
ORSON SCOTT CARD
Quotes about community service, engagement, and involvement
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.
MUHAMMAD ALI
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Teaching kids how to feed themselves and how to live in a community responsibly is the center of an education.
ALICE WATERS
Volunteers don’t get paid, not because they’re worthless, but because they’re priceless.
SHERRY ANDERSON
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
LEO BUSCAGLIA
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
ANNE FRANK
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
DR. SEUSS
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
OSCAR WILDE
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
MAYA ANGELOU
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
Quotes about community support
In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it.
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.
CORETTA SCOTT KING
The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.
JACQUELINE WOODSON
One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.
SHANNON L. ALDER
No man can become rich without himself enriching others.
ANDREW CARNEGIE
Quotes about community health
The power of community to create health is far greater than any physician, clinic or hospital.
MARK HYMAN
For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people’s love and concern for each other.
MILLARD FULLER
Communities and countries and ultimately the world are only as strong as the health of their women.
MICHELLE OBAMA
When elected officials abandon our environment and ruin our natural resources, public health is endangered. I know the importance of providing a clean environment for our children.
GWEN MOORE
And I believe that the best buy in public health today must be a combination of regular physical exercise and a healthy diet.
JULIE BISHOP
These quotes remind us of the joy of being part of something bigger than ourselves.
You've Got "It": It's Authenticity, and It's Your Superpower
"She hasn't got it," the audition panel member says. "The other girl, however, has -- and unfortunately it can't be taught. You either have it or you don't."
Honestly, how many times have you heard about this mysterious, God-given, unreachable "it"?
The it that has the potential to determine your life opportunities in seconds, yet that at the same time, no one can define.
I'll tell you what "it" is. It's the unashamed, full you. It's who you are without tension and fear. It's authenticity. And it is your superpower.
You've Got "It": It's Authenticity, and It's Your Superpower
Whoever tells you only some are born with it -- perhaps the audition panel member, or the slam poetry contest judge, or the doubtful singing teacher -- most likely does so out of pure ego, because someone, once upon a time, told them they had "it," and it made them feel special and superior.
You may be sceptical about this. "Why is it, then," you may ask, "that some people just seem to exude a natural charisma, while others cower away from the spotlight?"
One of two things: either the charismatic ones were born into privilege, or their charisma was hard-won. Perhaps both.
Playing the cards we're dealt
So many privilege-born people are famous worldwide not solely because they had the money to get where they wanted to go, but because their level of "it" has consistently soared through the roof.
Why?
Well, one reason is because as children they were showered with love.
Think about this without judgement for a moment. Because this is not to say that unprivileged families do not love their children. But rather, as someone who comes from an extremely unprivileged family, I know it is because unprivileged children's thoughts, aside from all the love and hope our families may offer, are often clouded with the deep-seated financial worry that money and/or success are scarce resources only destined for a small few in society. This fear is rarely present in the mind of a privileged child.
While all parents love to tell their children early on in life, "You can do anything!", a lot of working-class families feel obliged to add, "but be realistic." And this act of being realistic really is critical to the possibility of ever having "it".
Oprah Winfrey didn't just wake up one day with it. Growing up, she was the opposite of privileged. Mountainous setbacks, failures, doubts and uncertainties had to be overcome before "it" could become synonymous with her way of being in the world. "It," for me, is exemplified by Winfrey's unshakeable stage presence -– and it was not lightly won.
The inner you: the "it" in authenticity
Let's face the facts: your highest, most authentic self is not a realist. He or she is an optimist beyond belief. You can deny this all you want. But underneath all of that cynical armor is a hopeful child with the most utterly cosmic dreams for yourself.
What would happen if you let that child out, into your daily life, into every moment, every opportunity? You would suddenly have it. The "it" in au-then-tic-IT-y. The type of unforgettable presence that lights up a room for a moment and warms people's hearts for years.
It comes from copying no one. It comes from doing what only you do best. It comes from being wholly you.
Voice coach and author Patsy Rodenburg, in her book Presence, calls this being in "the Second Circle." The state of being alive and present and fully connected to oneself and one's surroundings; offering generously and receiving generously. She believes it is where all of the great athletes, actors, musicians, politicians and entrepreneurs, in their finest moments, live.
What is important to remember is that not only can you have it, but you are entitled to it. Authenticity is your birthright. The ability to shine is your birthright. The ability to be seen and heard and talked about with awe is your birthright.
So how do we unravel this version of you? How do we eliminate all of those years of useless worry, tension, unease, anxiety and fear?
By encouraging you to effortlessly be your authentic self in every situation.
Authenticity is your superpower
I wish there were some hidden, cryptic secret, but it truly is as simple as that. When you are authentically you, you are unstoppable. You are unbreakable. Flash back to every time you have laughed so hard your stomach hurt, cried tears of empathy watching a moving piece of cinema, or experienced the kind of joy that makes the world brighter and more colorful for a while. Undoubtedly, you had no time to wear your layers: you were your authentic self.
This is the person you are without a second thought, the person you are with your favorite people or practicing your favorite hobby. This is the person you are without mental, physical or emotional clutter getting in the way.
It is your job to own this part of you and become it more fully and relentlessly than you ever have before. It is your job to rekindle it and let it blaze brightly in the face of every rejection, every loss and every setback.
Don't be disconcerted by others' discomfort
But, remember this: on your journey towards retrieving "it," some people, especially those who've known you longest, won't like the changes they see. It will make them uncomfortable to know that you are shedding the old habits they associate you with because they no longer serve you; a sense of abandonment could lead them to try to curse your path.
They'll call you a fraud; they'll magnify your failures; they'll gossip about you and tell everyone how "phony" you've become (when you've actually just become your true self) and perhaps now and then their voices will win and the self-doubt will start.
When this happens, return to the words of Erin Elizabeth: "Being unapologetically yourself comes with a price. Always pay it."
This small fee will send you further in life than you can imagine in the present moment. Every successful person has had to pay it. And there's a hard truth about why so few people have "it," and it's not that some are born with it and the rest are not: it is that most are raised enclosed in a space of fear while a successful few, albeit for some with aid from their circumstances, are able to break through and beyond by choosing to trust their own power.
To close, just as we opened, on a quote by Dr. Seuss: