Community
In the process of connecting everything to everything, computers elevate the power of the small player. Instead of enforcing uniformity, they promote heterogeneity and autonomy. Instead of sucking the soul from human bodies, turning computer-users into an army of dull clones, networked computers — by reflecting the networked nature of our own brains and bodies — encourage the humanism of their users. Because they have taken on the flexibility, adaptability, and self-connecting governance of organic systems, we become more human, not less so, when we use them. ~Kevin Kelly


Look at the world through "soft eyes." Hard eyes distinguish and judge, noting the differences between ourselves and others. Soft eyes discern instead our commonality, the web of life that weaves itself through all humanity and nature. ~Mary Manin Morrissey


We as leaders don't do a good enough job of explaining to people that the quality of the community cannot be seen in terms of the best-off part of the community; it's measured in terms of how the most vulnerable people are doing. ~Max De Pree


If we create networks with the sole intention of getting something, we won't succeed. We can't pursue the benefits of networks; the benefits ensue from investments in meaningful activities and relationships. ~Wayne Baker


Love and respect are the most important aspects of parenting, and of all relationships. ~Jodie Foster


The American city should be a collection of communities where every member has a right to belong. It should be a place where every man feels safe on his streets and in the house of his friends. It should be a place where each individual's dignity and self-respect is strengthened by the respect and affection of his neighbors. It should be a place where each of us can find the satisfaction and warmth which comes from being a member of the community of man. This is what man sought at the dawn of civilization. It is what we seek today. ~Lyndon Baines Johnson


You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time. ~Scott Peck


Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we really listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created. ~Brenda Ueland


Listening is a form of accepting. ~Stella Terill Mann


Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. ~Chief Seattle


Excuse me for being greedy, but I want freedom and good government. Both a flourishing economy and a well-cared-for earth. A society that is diverse and communal ... that offers both privacy and accountability. One that can afford a big conscience, along with lots of neat toys. In fact, despite the relentless propaganda about "trade-offs," it should be evident by now that all five of these pairs will either prosper together or wither on the same vine. They are linked. They share the same blood supply. What evidence can I offer for such a strong and iconoclastic statement? The same evidence I have used several times before. Us. ~David Brin


The real change set in motion by the Internet may, in fact, be a control revolution, a vast transformation in who governs information, experience, and resources. ~Andrew L. Shapiro


We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ~Thomas Jefferson


Trust is the bandwidth of communication. ~Karl Erik Sveiby


Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console,
To be understood, as to understand,
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life. ~St Francis of Assisi


When minds are one, what is far comes near. ~African tribe Swahili


Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. ~Margaret Mead


Rather than thinking of an organization as an imposed structure, plan, design, or role, it is clear that in life, organization arises from the interactions and needs of individuals who have decided to come together. ~Margaret Wheatley


If we are fortunate, there occurs at least once in our lifetimes a "moment of clarity" in which we observe ourselves with our own eyes and see how narrowly we have lived in contrast with how we might live if we fulfilled the possibilities of our best selves. We see that we have come to everything — work, relationships, even the Internet — with an intention to use or exploit it to meet our needs. We see that it is possible to come to the world with an intention to expand the options and possibilities of others instead of our own.

Once we have had that moment of clarity and our energy shifts, flowing out into the lives of others in a way that meets our own needs too, we experience a feedback loop that is mutually nourishing, that grows exponentially. ~Richard Thieme


If our habitual conditioning is to overcome our pain, we will have a tendency to feel overwhelmed when things don't go the way we wish. We may even feel a need to "beat" another's pain. We will find it difficult to connect with them just where they are. We won't be able to touch them with love because if we want anything from somebody, even for them to be out of pain, they will be an object in our mind rather than the subject of our heart. If we can open to our own pain and explore our resistances and long-held aversions, there arises the possibility of touching another's pain with compassion, of meeting another as we meet ourselves with a bit more clarity and tenderness. We see in such instances how the work we do on ourselves is clearly of benefit to all sentient beings. Each person who works to open his heart touches the heart of us all. When we are no longer recreating the problem, we reaffirm the solution. We discover from day to day how the healing we do for ourselves is a healing for all. ~Stephen Levine


Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking. ~Lynn Margulis


We clasp the hands of those that go before us,
And the hands of those who come after us.
We enter the little circle of each other's arms
And the larger circle of lovers,
Whose hands are joined in a dance,
And the larger circle of all creatures,
Passing in and out of life,
Who move also in a dance,
To a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it
Except in fragments. ~Wendell Berry


Not just any talk is conversation; not any talk raises consciousness. Good conversation has an edge: it opens your eyes to something, quickens your ears. And good conversation reverberates: it keeps on talking in your mind later in the day; the next day, you find yourself still conversing with what was said. That reverberation afterward is the very raising of consciousness; your mind's been moved. You are at another level with your reflections. ~James Hillman


The Choice to follow love through to its completion is the choice to seek completion within ourselves. The point at which we shut down on others is the point at which we shut down on life. We heal as we heal others, and we heal others by extending our perceptions past their weaknesses. Until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who that person is. Until we have forgiven someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is. Forgiving others is the only way to forgive ourselves, and forgiveness is our greatest need. ~Marianne Williamson


Creating a positive future begins in human conversation. The simplest and most powerful investment any member of a community or an organization may make in renewal is to begin talking with others as though the answers mattered. ~William Greider


Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. ~Reinhold Niebuhr


not so much
looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours. ~A.R. Ammons


We arrive at the universal, not by abandoning our individuality, but by turning it into a way of reaching out to others. ~Maurice Merleau-Ponty


There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication. Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing. ~John Dewey


Collaboration is the process of shared creation: two or more individuals with complementary skills interacting to create a shared understanding that none had previously possessed or could have come to on their own. ~Michael Schrage


There are two sins in community-building group process. The first is to speak when not moved. The second is to not speak when moved. I find the second one to be harder to overcome sometimes than the first. ~Scott Peck


May we open to a deeper understanding and a genuine love and caring for the multitude of faces who are none other than ourself. ~Wendy Egyoku Nakao


At its essence, every organization is a product of how its members think and interact. ~Peter Senge


The greatest gift we give ourselves and each other is the quality of our attention. ~Richard Moss


Capitalism makes networks. It doesn't make communities. Imagination makes communities. ~Robert Haas


At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. ~Albert Schweitzer


To discover the mind of another human being or one's own requires the risk of opening oneself up to the unfamiliar, the unexpected, which is often felt to be threatening. In the process something breaks and gives way: an eggshell. That is the price of birth and growth. ~Walter Kaufmann


The emerging electronic planetary nervous system is an expression of nature's impulse to ever-greater complexity and intelligence. Through it we may become smart enough together to respond quickly, wisely, and resiliently to the profound changes of our time. But this silicon and fiber-optic "body" will not realize its potential without healthy organizational and community life breathing the spirit of interdependence, partnership, and collaboration throughout it. ~Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz


I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. ~Edward Everett Hale


Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic elements, identity of interest, clarity of vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of purpose, or any of these is lacking, all sentimental pleas for solidarity, and all other efforts to achieve it will be barren of results. ~Eugene V. Debs