Common Good Quotes - Page 6

• I abhor the word "consumer." Consumers, unlike citizens, have no implicit duties, obligations, or responsibilities to the common good. It's a degrading term. The use of it degrades the public discussion.

  James Howard Kunstler

  Responsibility, Citizens, Use

  Source: www.raisethehammer.org

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• Most people have a sense that things have gone terribly wrong. It's not just some giveaways to the rich and the rigging of regulatory rules. It's something fundamental. The very idea of America is being stolen, and people are sensing that with a tremor within their hearts. They are taking away this core notion of the common good, this idea that we are all in it together. They are diverting America from our historic striving towards egalitarianism, which is why America exists. It's the thing that makes us unique in history. That's what people are sensing. We are going down the wrong path.

  Jim Hightower

  Heart, Unique, People

  Source: progressive.org

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• ... an essential feature of a decent society, and an almost defining feature of a democratic society, is relative equality of outcome - not opportunity, but outcome. Without that you can't seriously talk about a democratic state... These concepts of the common good have a long life. They lie right at the core of classical liberalism, of Enlightenment thinking... Like Aristotle, [Adam] Smith understood that the common good will require substantial intervention to assure lasting prosperity of the poor by distribution of public revenues.

  Noam Chomsky

  Lying, Opportunity, Thinking

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• The original Greek word "idiotes" referred to people who might have had a high IQ, but were so self-involved that they focused exclusively on their own life and were both ignorant of and uncaring about public concerns and the common good.

  Jim Hightower

  Self, People, Greek

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• We've increasingly lost that sense of community, of the notion that there is something we contribute to and benefit from that is called the common good. I think I would date the beginnings of that loss to the Reagan administration and to the notion that somehow we were all separate individuals who only ought to be interested in ourselves.

  Joan Wallach Scott

  Loss, Thinking, Community

  Source: www.salon.com

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• But there are many men-and women-who do things in a time of war that they wouldn't dream of doing in peacetime, and all for the common good.

  Jacqueline Winspear

  Dream, War, Men

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• Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: 'What are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved?'

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Government, Generations, Citizens

  "Meeting with the Representatives of British Society, Including the Diplomatic Corps, Politicians, Academics and Business Leaders". Pope Benedict XVI speech, w2.vatican.va. September 17, 2010.

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• Sometimes we think we're a little too gifted to show up, yo uknow. But none of us truly is...By avoiding risk we really risk what's most important in life---reaching toward growth, our potential, and a true contribution to a common good.

  Max De Pree

  Thinking, Risk, Growth

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• There's no necessary connection between maximizing social utility or economic wealth and creating a flourishing democracy. The first does not guarantee the second. The only way to create a flourishing democracy is to find ways to reason together about the big questions, including hard questions about justice and the common good, to reason together about these questions so that we as citizens can decide how to shape the forces that govern our lives.

  Michael Sandel

  Justice, Democracy, Together

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The public realm in America has two roles: it is the dwelling place of our civilization and our civic life, and it is the physical manifestation of the common good. When you degrade the public realm, you will automatically degrade the quality of your civic life and the character of all the enactments of your public life and communal life that take place there.

  James Howard Kunstler

  Character, Dwelling Place, Civilization

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• I was always interested in the larger picture, I was pre-law in college, and had a degree in economics. I was very interested in the big question 'how then shall we live?,' how do we organize as a civilization when we are so different, and often don't get along, yet we know at some point we have to unite for the common good? I actually really care about those issues, and I'm driven to understand how it works.

  Jay Roach

  College, Law, Civilization

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

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• You talk about the [armed] service teaches you how to depend on each other, the service makes you aware of the common good and strips that down. Guys who go into service get to have that. But that's a high price to pay in this day and time with going into service.

  Jerry Jones

  Guy, Pay, Common

  Source: bleacherreport.com

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• Young people oppose those market-driven values and practices aimed at both creating radically individualized subjects and undermining those public spheres that create bonds of solidarity that reinforce a commitment to the common good.

  Henry Giroux

  Commitment, Practice, Creating

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Conservative and liberal politicians alike now spend millions waging wars around the globe, funding the largest military state in the world, providing huge tax benefits to the ultrarich and major corporations, and all the while draining public coffers, increasing the scale of human poverty and misery, and eliminating all viable public spheres - whether they be the social state, public schools, public transportation or any other aspect of a formative culture that addresses the needs of the common good.

  Henry Giroux

  Military, War, School

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Public values are not only under attack in the United States and elsewhere but appear to have become irrelevant just as those spaces that enable an experience of the common good are now the object of disdain by right-wing and liberal politicians, anti-public intellectuals and an army of media pundits.

  Henry Giroux

  Army, Media, Wings

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• We are called to serve the common good by engaging with political and other institutions, even in our pluralistic society. We bring to that effort Christ's command to love and the grace that helps us live that love.

  John I. Jenkins

  Effort, Political, Grace

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

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• People everywhere look to the United States to use its remarkable power to help lift humanity up and to work for the common good.

  Ban Ki-moon

  People, Humanity, Use

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

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• Serving democracy and nourishing the common good is, for the media, something that requires not only attacking corrupt secrecies in a society, but also defending non-corrupt communication.

  Rowan Williams

  Communication, Media, Democracy

  "This media tribe disfigures public life" by Rowan Williams, www.theguardian.com. June 16, 2005.

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• Care for life and physical health, with due regard for the needs of others and the common good, is concomitant with respect for human dignity.

  Salvatore J. Cordileone

  Needs, Care, Common

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• Religious pluralism is neither mere coexistence nor forced consensus. It is a form of proactive cooperation that affirms the identity of the constituent communities while emphasizing that the well-being of each and all depends on the health of the whole. It is the belief that the common good is best served when each community has a chance to make its unique contribution.

  Eboo Patel

  Religious, Unique, Pluralism Is

  "Where Islam and America Meet". "30 Good Minutes", www.30goodminutes.org. March 11, 2007.

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• You hear that liberalism lacks an idea of the common good, but I think that's a mistake.

  John Rawls

  Mistake, Thinking, Ideas

  John Rawls, Samuel Richard Freeman (1999). “Collected Papers”, p.622, Harvard University Press

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• There are various ways you might define the common good, but that would be one way you could do it.

  John Rawls

  Would Be, Might, Way

  John Rawls, Samuel Richard Freeman (1999). “Collected Papers”, p.622, Harvard University Press

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• Different political views, even if they're all liberal, in the sense of supporting liberal constitutional democracy, undoubtedly have some notion of the common good in the form of the means provided to assure that people can make use of their liberties, and the like.

  John Rawls

  Mean, Views, People

  John Rawls, Samuel Richard Freeman (1999). “Collected Papers”, p.622, Harvard University Press

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• I believed the people had a true instinct in most matters of government when left alone. That they were not swayed, as specially favoured individuals were, by personal interest, but rather by a sense of what best served the common good. That they recognized the truth when it was put before them, and that a leader can guide so long as he kept to the right lines. I did not think it was a mark of leadership to try to make the people do what one wanted them to do.

  William Lyon Mackenzie King

  Thinking, Government, Long

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• Everything I've done feels like I'm just as much a part of it as if I was the producer. It's still the same job: all of us together figuring out the common good for a song. That's the only thing that matters. It's not like, "I'm the boss, and I'm gonna tell you what to play."

  Vince Gill

  Song, Jobs, Play

  Source: www.rollingstone.com

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