Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
quote by Benjamin Disraeli
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
We're five people, five individuals who came together to create something, to make music and to complete each other musically, to form a perfect circle.
quote by Maynard James Keenan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The English are crooked as a nation and honest as individuals. The contrary is true of the French, who are honest as a nation and crooked as individuals.
quote by Edmond De Goncourt
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights. The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the individuals composing it. The Government that is ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level, as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society is composed.
quote by Samuel Smiles
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
There will not be one kind of community existing and one kind of life led in utopia. Utopia will consist of utopias, of many different and divergent communities in which people lead different kinds of lives under different institutions. Some kinds of communities will be more attractive to most than others; communities will wax and wane. People will leave some for others or spend their whole lives in one. Utopia is a framework for utopias, a place where people are at liberty to join together voluntarily to pursue and attempt to realize their own vision of the good life in the ideal community but where no one can impose his
own utopian vision upon others.
quote by Robert Nozick
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
A Word
If I make a word
it is first sculpted from letters
on the page
a canvass across which
letters skate
from margin to margin transforming
into meanings and sentences
which give us art, science, poetry
and civilization.
This is created from an arbitrary entity,
the scratchings we call letters
which in turn form yet another
mysterious entity we call the alphabet.
What manner of miracle is this?
All of civilization is born from
these scribbly scratchings?
So if each letter is an imaginary entity,
an arbitrary symbol we made up
which has no meaning by itself
and lives inside another arbitrary entity
we call the alphabet
we may properly ask
what is going on here?
Meaning here is deriving from an arbitrary nothingness
arbitrarily created from arbitrary letters
by virtue of common agreement around
what words will mean?
Ponder this:
we too, as individuals are letter unique
and, in our variety, form a kind of human alphabet.
What we all mean and can mean to each other
therefore depends upon the words we form
in our families and communities; our human alphabets.
So, one word letters such as 'I' are too self-regarding
and are narcissistic anomalies
not true words at all.
Better words have more syllables than that
and have enabled us to form social sentences
more complex
which we can use for good or ill
peace or war, love or hate.
So watch your words and sentences
don't swing them recklessly in a crowded room
you'll put somebody's mind out
or create genius.
Big responsibility this
especially for us poets.
So in the end
in mass society
you and I are a single letter
but combined create all there is.
You can take that
as the first
and last
Word
And by the way
arbitrary letters
are electrons at the sub-atomic level
and combine to make molecules
and the greatest meaning of all
All of the Universe.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
We have to deal with where we are. We have to create cooperatives, we have to create intentional communities, we have to work for local cooperation where we are.
quote by Jerry Brown
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be establishedat every level--there's little bargaining, a little give and take,but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until the major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy.
quote by Noam Chomsky
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Let individuals create real wealth, empower them, create something that they can leave for their children.
quote by John Sununu
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.
quote by Barbara Jordan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
As the society has gotten larger and more complex, individuals have lost their ability to influence any of the institutions that affect their lives.
quote by Robert Teeter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
One of the most powerful tools for empowering individuals and communities is making certain that any individual who wants to receive a quality education can do so.
quote by Christine Gregoire
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Unfortunately, we are finding the bureaucratic inefficiencies and red tape have a tendency to slow the efforts of individuals and communities working to rebuild.
quote by Bobby Jindal
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Is The Battle Worth Fighting?
some individuals fight battles
with other individuals needlessly
some individuals are never long
content with getting their own way
some individuals fight ferociously
to dominate all those around about
some individuals who cannot safe vent dominate
their own desires seek to next dominate all others
some individuals who cannot control own emotions
seek to control all within range sphere of influence
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A book reaches a different crowd of people. There are 50 different stories of very different individuals participating in their communities either locally or nationally in meaningful ways.
quote by Joan Blades
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Communities don't have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights.
quote by Michael Badnarik
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
With over 1 billion users and counting worldwide, the Internet has quickly become a critical place for individuals, business communities and governments to share and distribute information.
quote by Robin Hayes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
I can create institutions, but I can't rewrite the chips in people's heads.
quote by Paddy Ashdown
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
I shall set my course to the end that no man need fear to speak the truth. I could not do less, for the opportunities for service my country has given me and the honors it has conferred upon me have imposed an obligation which is not discharged by the termination of public service. Much that I have seen since my return to my native land after an absence of many years has filled me with immeasurable satisfaction and pride. Our material progress has been little short of phenomenal. It has established an eminence in material strength so far in advance of any other nation or combination of nations that talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. It is not of any external threat that I concern myself but rather of insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions — those institutions which formerly we hailed as something beyond question or challenge — those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.
quote by Douglas MacArthur
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
We must invest in infrastructure development and rebuilding communities to create jobs.
quote by Carol Moseley Braun
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
We need strong public health institutions to respond to any challenge. We need to deal with critical infrastructure. The reality is that very little money has flowed to communities to help our first responders; to help our hospitals; to help the public health infrastructure.
quote by Robert Menendez
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!