Common Good Quotes - Page 6

• Today the universal common good poses problems of world-wide dimensions, which cannot be adequately tackled or solved except by the efforts of public authorities endowed with a wideness of powers, structure and means of the same proportions; that is... on a world-wide basis.

  Pope John XXIII

  Mean, Effort, Today

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• God ordained and established civil government, but only to serve the common good. A civil government that oppresses its people and acts contrary to the people's interests deposes itself, ceases to be a legitimate government, and, therefore, citizens are no longer obligated by Scripture to obey it.

  Daniel L Dreisbach

  Government, People, Scripture

  Source: www.biblegateway.com

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• 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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• A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.

  James Madison

  Party, Passion, Practice

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.44

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• There are some arts which to those that possess them are painful, but to those that use them are helpful, a common good to laymen, but to those that practise them grievous. Of such arts there is one which the Greeks call medicine. For the medical man sees terrible sights, touches unpleasant things, and the misfortunes of others bring a harvest of sorrows that are peculiarly his; but the sick by means of the art rid themselves of the worst of evils, disease, suffering, pain and death.

  Hippocrates

  Art, Pain, Mean

  Hippocrates, Paul Potter (1984). “Hippocrates”

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• It violates right order whenever capital so employs the working or wage-earning classes as to divert business and economic activity entirely to its own arbitrary will and advantage, without any regard to the human dignity of the workers, the social character of economic life, social justice, and the common good.

  Pope Pius XI

  Character, Order, Class

  Pope Pius XI (1935). “Forty Years After: Reconstructing the Social Order”

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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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• 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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• 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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• ... 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• The only way to effectively secure the common good is for the government to remain small.

  Joel Miller

  Government, Way, Common

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• The more government does, the greater chance that its efforts will be tilted toward a particular group's good, instead of the common good.

  Joel Miller

  Government, Effort, Groups

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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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• 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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• The advanced organizations of Thinking must teach with their example by cooperating. Every human organization can cooperate in one or another way for the common good. We are a family and we should not miserably torment each other's life because that's absurd.

  Samael Aun Weor

  Thinking, Organization, Way

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• The Reagan-Bush years have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.

  William J. Clinton

  Years, Greed, Age

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• Politics, according to the Social Doctrine of the Church, is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good. I cannot wash my hands, eh? We all have to give something!

  Pope Francis

  Hands, Giving, Church

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• We created a whole lot of millionaires to boot. Businesses did just fine. And you know there are plenty of patriotic, successful Americans all across the country -- I meet them every day -- who'd be willing to make this contribution again because they understand there is such a thing as the common good. They understand that we're in this thing together.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Patriotic, Successful

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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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