Top 100 The Common Good Quotes
#1. It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong.
Aristotle.
#2. The important role of union organizations must be admitted: their object is the representation of the various categories of workers, their lawful collaboration in the economic advance of society, and the development of the sense of their responsibility for the realization of the common good.
Pope Paul VI
#3. we see it as a means of sharing responsibility for acting together in pursuit of the common good.
Ed O'Malley
#4. This contrasts sharply with the progressive view that markets must respect human dignity and serve the common good while pursuing profit.
George Lakoff
#5. The Buke of Ye Chess used the game as the basis for a series of sermons on morality. Neither book illustrates play or player improvement, but uses the chessboard and pieces to 'allegorize a political community whose citizens contribute to the common good'2.
Laura Caine Ramsey
#6. Every dollar that is printed should not represent a debt to private bankers. It should represent an investment potential in the common good, in the common needs of our country.
Cynthia McKinney
#7. 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
#8. Greed is rightly considered a "deadly sin" because it erodes the moral values that encourage us to care for the common good. Greed violates the spirit of connectedness and community that is natural to human survival [...] replacing this awareness with harmful self-centeredness.
Bell Hooks
#9. The billionaire who sits on his money and doesn't do anything for the common good - I'm not interested in that person.
Arpad Busson
#10. In an era when careerism dominates the campus, is it too much to expect students to go beyond their private interests, learn about the world around them, develop a sense of civic and social responsibility, and discover how they can contribute to the common good?
Ernest L. Boyer
#11. Some fine day, Democrats may figure out how to get on the right side of the value divide - how to define America as a place of the common good and not a playground of the strong.
Todd Gitlin
#12. I do not understand, why should mankind destroy each other?. Instead of building and working together for the common good?
Lailah Gifty Akita
#13. More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure.
Albert Camus
#15. there's a single phrase to describe Sister Simone, it is "compassionate conviction." With bravery, with courage, with optimism, she is focused on the common good. She is a champion for the cause of peace and justice. She has the will and the drive to do right.
Simone Campbell
#16. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
Jamie Osbourne
#17. World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest sense,in its only sense, the patriotism of humans who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good.
Peter Ustinov
#18. Art is a positive "FORCE" that bring beings together for the common good. Only the people who had lost a piece of themselves can create the unimaginary.
Henry Johnson Jr
#19. There are crimes that no one would commit as an individual which he willingly and bravely commits when acting in the name of his society, because he has been (too easily) convinced that evil is entirely different when it is done 'for the common good'.
Thomas Merton
#20. If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
Barbara Tuchman
#21. No decisions should ever be made without asking the question, is this for the common good?
Michael Moore
#22. It is now, more than ever, necessary that political leaders be outstanding for honesty, integrity and commitment to the common good.
Pope Francis
#23. Make sure your intentions are not only for yourself, but also for the common good.
Deepak Chopra
#24. In leadership writ large, mutually agreed upon purposes help people achieve consensus, assume responsibility, work for the common good, and build community.
Joseph C. Rost
#25. Libertarians recognize the inevitable pluralism of the modern world and for that reason assert that individual liberty is at least part of the common good.
Tom G. Palmer
#26. This new power, which has proved itself to be such a terrifying weapon of destruction, is harnessed for the first time for the common good of our community.
Queen Elizabeth II
#27. We call ourselves public servants but I'll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.
Barbara Jordan
#28. The Gospel calls individual Christians to live lives of honesty, integrity and concern for the common good.. to create circles of integrity.., networks of solidarity which can expand to embrace and transform society by their prophetic witness.
Pope Francis
#29. 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
#30. There is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good.
George Eliot
#31. Through their teachings they dignify even the most mundane professions. According to them any profession or work that adds to the common good of man must be respected and it is dignified
Sunday Adelaja
#32. Can we imagine a different world? I can. That's a world where work is rational, it's in the common good, and we're actually producing real things rather than spinning our wheels in dreams of consumer heaven.
Bill Ayers
#33. Self-interest is hostile to the common good, but enlightened self-interest is not. And this is the best key to the meaning of enlightenment.
Allan Bloom
#34. This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good ... for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for neighbors.
Saint John Chrysostom
#35. I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes as common as the grass.
Laozi
#36. The main concern of the frame is that money be kept in the common wealth (or the hands of the government) in order to be used for the common good. HOW
George Lakoff
#37. Political civility is not about being polite to each other. It's about reclaiming the power of 'We the People' to come together, debate the common good and call American democracy back to its highest values amid our differences.
Parker Palmer
#38. Justice requires that to lawfully constituted Authority there be given that respect and obedience which is its due; that the laws which are made shall be in wise conformity with the common good; and that, as a matter of conscience all men shall render obedience to these laws.
Pope Pius XI
#39. Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group - whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called 'the common good'
Ayn Rand
#40. If the end of human law is the promotion of the common good among men, the divine law has for its purpose nothing less than our friendship with God.
Scott Hahn
#41. No one should be forced to violate one's conscience, nor should anyone be forced out of service of the common good because there are some things their conscience tells them they cannot do.
Donald Wuerl
#42. 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
#43. Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.
Thomas Aquinas
#44. When you desire the common good, the whole world desires with you. Make humanity's desire your own and work for it. There you cannot fail.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
#45. 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
#46. Apparently, we have become such a hyper-individualized culture that it is impossible to develop an argument based on how individual cases fit into the fabric of the common good.
David Brooks
#47. Grace dispensers give out of their own bounty, in gratitude (a word with the same root as grace) for what we have received from God. We serve others not with some hidden scheme of making converts, rather to contribute to the common good, to help humans flourish as God intended.
Philip Yancey
#48. The U.S. cannot force Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds to make peace or to act for the common good. They have been in conflict for 1,400 years.
Peter DeFazio
#49. We need to rediscover the idea of the common good and work together to build a home.
Jonathan Sacks
#50. What it missing, I think, is this notion of the common good.
Susan George
#51. Leadership is the ability to get individuals to work together for the common good and the best possible results while at the same time letting them know they did it themselves.
John Wooden
#52. The wealthy have installed their slaves in the highest spheres of the state. The banks are privately owned. They are concerned solely with profits. They have no interest in the common good.
Stephane Hessel
#53. When you're fund-raising for schools, then something's wrong. We seem to have lost some sort of sense of what the common good is, and if you don't have a sense of what the common good is, then at least give to what you think your specific goods are.
Lewis Black
#54. I know Barack Obama. And I believe that as president, he'll pursue the common good by seeking common ground rather than trying to divide us.
Bob Casey Jr.
#55. Many of you are well enough off that the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.
Hillary Clinton
#57. Human law cannot punish or forbid all evil, since while doing away with evils it would do away with many good things, which would hinder the advance of the common good.
Saint Augustine
#58. Law is nothing other than a certain ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated by the person who has the care of the community.
Thomas Aquinas
#59. 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
#60. A system of world order-preferably a system of world government -is mandatory ... The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty ...
Walter Cronkite
#61. 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
#62. All you need are these: certainty of judgment in the present moment; action for the common good in the present moment; and an attitude of gratitude in the present moment for anything that comes your way." - MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 9.6
Ryan Holiday
#63. 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
#64. It is important for the common good to foster individuality: for only the individual can produce the new ideas which the community needs for its continuous improvement and
requirements - indeed, to avoid sterility and petrification
Albert Einstein
#65. Politics is a noble activity. We should revalue it, practise it with vocation and a dedication that requires testimony, martyrdom, that is to die for the common good.
Pope Francis
#66. Patriotism is love of country. But you can't love your country without loving your countrymen and countrywomen. We don't always have to agree, but we must empower each other, we must find the common ground, we must build bridges across our differences to pursue the common good.
Cory Booker
#67. The desire to serve the common good must without fail be a requisite of the soul, a necessity for personal happiness; if it issuesnot from there, but from theoretical or other considerations, it is not at all the same thing.
Anton Chekhov
#68. Sincere and generous collaboration is the best way to fulfil the legitimate aspirations of each person and achieve great collective goals for the common good and the general interest.
King Felipe VI
#69. The civil power must not be subservient to the advantage of any one individual, or of some few persons; inasmuch as it was established for the common good of all.
Pope Leo XII
#70. N OTHING is done in the interest of welfare for the common good where there is money to be made.
Anton Szandor LaVey
#71. Christianity always flourishes most as a life-giving minority, not as a powerful majority. It is through subversive, countercultural acts of love, justice, and service for the common good that Christianity has always gained the most ground.
Scott Sauls
#72. I think both freedom of religion and freedom of expression are both fundamental human rights, everyone has not only the freedom and the right but the obligation to say what Pope Francis thinks for the common good ... we have the right to have this freedom openly without offending.
Pope Francis
#73. Each of us must rededicate ourselves to serving the common good. We are a community. Our individual Fates are linked; our futures intertwined; and if we act in that knowledge and in that spirit together, as the Bible says: "We can move mountains."
Jimmy Carter
#74. He does much who loves God much, and he does much who does his deed well, and he does his deed well who does it rather for the common good than for his own will.
Thomas A Kempis
#75. Conservation is the application of common sense to the common problems for the common good.
Gifford Pinchot
#76. Providing for the common good, making people feel secure in their communities and homes - this is the central job of government. it's why all of us are here serving our state and our people.
John Baldacci
#77. The only way to effectively secure the common good is for the government to remain small.
Joel Miller
#78. When the common good of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals.
Ayn Rand
#79. Many years ago someone told me something that I flatly refused to accept. And I still don't accept it now, despite all the times I've seen it proved right.
"The common good and the individual good rarely coincide ... "
Sure, I know, it's true.
But some truths are probably worse than lies.
Sergei Lukyanenko
#81. 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
#82. 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
#83. Where people of goodwill get together and transcend their differences for the common good, peaceful and just solutions can be found even for those problems which seem most intractable.
Nelson Mandela
#84. Following the rise of the Labour Party it seemed reasonable, in 1927, to expect, or at least hope, that co-operation for the common good might gradually replace the competitiveness of capitalism.
Dora Russell
#85. Politics isn't just a game of clashing parties and competing interests. The right reason is to challenge the status quo, to serve the common good, and to leave this nation better than we found it.
Sarah Palin
#86. Balancing the common good with the freedom and liberty to exercise that individuality has been and remains a challenge for those committed to democracy while understanding that the polis ensures our participation and therefore our citizenship.
David Blunkett
#87. All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.
Blaise Pascal
#88. Reflection is only a partial understanding of truth if it does not translate itself in practice into commitments to the common good and justice. Truth is not mere abstraction but something to be done and is only apprehended when this is realized.
Adolfo Perez Esquivel
#89. Advocacy groups, politicians, and bureaucrats use the government to advance their private good instead of the common good.
Joel Miller
#90. Our leaders will serve the common good with better laws and better actions only when we serve it first, by casting better votes.
Alan Keyes
#91. Keep in view the common good of the people for all time.
John Muir
#92. We talk about democracy as if it's a safeguard for individual rights ... Instead, it's become our way of intruding on rights, allegedly in the name of that most collectivist of concepts: The Common Good.
Jonathan D. Morris
#93. In a politically diverse nation, only by finding that common ground can we achieve results for the common good.
Olympia Snowe
#94. In truth, a State whose society is not sovereign is no sovereign State at all. Such is the case when a society has no chance to decide the common good, and when it has been denied the basic right to share in power and responsibility
Pope John Paul II
#95. I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved.
Warren G
#96. In the newborn child is realized the common good of the family.
Pope John Paul II
#97. Markets do not automatically generate trust, cooperation or collective action for the common good. Quite the contrary: it is in the nature of economic competition that a participant who breaks the rules will triumph - at least in the short run - over more ethically sensitive competitors.
Tony Judt
#98. The mug is a tool. My ace in the hole. To have looks is the bonus on top of what motivates me to be an actor. Not to realize they're an asset would be counterproductive to the cause; they serve the common good.
Billy Zane
#99. Some of us learned in a school of philosophy which taught that all was for the common good and nothing for oneself and have never, in any case, regarded the pursuit of happiness as anything other than an aberration of the human spirit.
John Grierson
#100. On issue after issue, the counterpoints to the conservative principle of the free market are the progressive principles of human dignity and the common good. We are interested in a market that serves human values, not humans who serve a market. Take
George Lakoff
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