Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash
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.
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You Have Been Paid For
It was Maya Angelou who said that each of us has been paid for by those who came before us, and so therefore it is our duty to pay for those who are yet to come.
Think about it: Every chance and opportunity you have ever been offered has only been available because somebody, somewhere, at some point in time, fought for your freedom. "Each of you," Angelou wrote, "Black, White, Brown, Yellow, Red—whatever pigment you use to describe yourselves—has been paid for."
For that reason alone, wouldn't it be a shame if you were to go through your whole life having never maximized every opportunity? Having never fully known what you could have been, because you were too lazy or too broke or too absorbed in your own justifications for not being able to take the leap?
You Have Been Paid For
Realize now that choosing to live out the life of your dreams is so much bigger than simply satisfying yourself. You are also satisfying your father who sacrificed his chance at a good education so you could have yours; your mother who worked tirelessly so you could grow up never knowing the struggles she knew all too well; your grandmothers and grandfathers; your ancestors of centuries ago who could only dream of the privileges and opportunities present in your life today.
Following your dreams is perhaps the most selfless act there is. Because everyone knows that when you truly follow your heart, it riddles your life with uncertainty. There is always a voice in the back of your head telling you that if you get too complacent you could fail; that you should give up early while you're still on top; that it would be in your best interest to just accept and move on from whatever little success you had and pursue the safer option from now on.
But it takes a deeper, instinctual awareness to persist despite hardship. An awareness that you have been paid for – that you have been paid for in the form of the clothes on your back and the food in your fridge, the room you have been allowed to rent and the bed you get to rest your head in every night.
Perhaps you believe in something bigger than yourself that has paid for you: the Universe, or God, or Allah, or Buddha, all of the above or none of the above. Whatever you believe, we are each balls of star energy walking around on a rock floating in space... It is difficult to accept that our existence here is anything but magic.
So whenever I read a story of someone who committed suicide or gave up on their dream or died too young, or all three, I always affirm to myself: "I'm taking that person with me. I'm taking that person with me the next time I get on a stage, or do a job interview, or have anything to do that requires great courage."
I'm bringing them with me. Because they deserve to be honored. Because they remind me that I'm doing what I do not just for selfish purposes; that I'm also doing it for everyone who for whatever reason couldn't make it this far. Who saw no escape, who saw no light.
I want to be that light.
Because we have each been paid for on this planet, and it is our duty to live out the dreams of others who saw no possibility to live them themselves.
Remind yourself of this fact and you will never question your conviction towards the things that set your soul on fire.