Quotes about Community

It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

I recalled a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called "The Drum Major Instinct." In it, he talks about how, deep down, we all want to be first, celebrated for our greatness; we all want "to lead the parade." He goes on to point out that such selfish impulses can be reconciled by aligning that quest for greatness with more selfless aims. You can strive to be first in service, first in love.

Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.

And so the moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives forever, and for the better. This is an enormous force for good.

The people back home, they didn't even know anyone else who had ridden in an airplane before. So they expected everything from him. 'Ah, Barack, you are a big shot now. You should give me something. You should help me.' Always these pressures from family. And he couldn't say no, he was so generous. You

Once I found an issue enough people cared about, I could take them into action. With enough actions, I could start to build power. Issues

Chicago, a town that's accustomed to its racial wounds and prides itself on a certain lack of sentiment.

My liberty depends on you being free, too.

Through them, I discovered a community of faith—that it was okay to doubt, to question, and still reach for something beyond the here and now.

A change happens because ordinary people do extraordinary things.

This dual sense of individual advancement and collective decline that I thought accounted for some of the most troubling attitudes I heard in some conversations.

If your next-door neighbor's house is on fire, you don't want the fire department dispatcher asking whether it was caused by lightning or by someone smoking in bed before agreeing to send a fire truck; you just want the fire put out before it reaches your house.