Parker Palmer Quotes

Good citizenship and defending democracy means living up to the ideals and values that make this country great.

There is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves.

Everybody is supposed to be a part of their own community.

Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church.

When strangers start acting like neighbors... communities are reinvigorated.

You either have a civil society or you don't.

There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.

Admitting the force of these contentions, nevertheless, the custom of meeting together in public assembly for the consideration of the most serious, the most exalted topics of human interest is too vitally precious to be lost.

The greatest failure is that although we have created institutions, we have not created a civil society.

There is this absurd assumption that the revitalisation of the public sphere is always a good thing. I think people tend to confuse 'civic' and 'civil,' and they believe that everything that is done by citizens is necessarily a good thing because you build a network, an association.

Civilization is the making of civil persons.

Our civic society is really all we have by way of nationhood.

The stories a society tells about itself are a measure of how it values itself, the ideals of democracy, and its future.

We can’ t renew our country unless more of us—I mean all of us—are willing to join churches.

When people fought for a democratic life, they were insisting that the common man had the capacity to engage in deliberation about how the community ought to run its life, not that you could let him squeak for what he wanted. And that ideal was that you could educate the common man to develop a certain amount of wisdom and that he could marshal the objectivity to deliberate and decide about what the public would require without always thinking that the political action was an opportunity to further his private interests…

Americans of all ages, all stations of life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations... In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society.

A government of, by, and for the people requires that people talk to people, that we can agree to disagree but do so in civility. If we let the politicians and those who report dictate our discourse, then our course will be dictated.

My theory is this: Rather than having commentaries from the cheap seats, get involved and see what you can do. What can you do around your own community, within your own family, to try to improve race relations in our country? I think this is a responsibility that we all have as citizens.

The strength of the nation ultimately depends upon the strength of family and community.

That a country has a strong civil society is, I believe, particularly necessary for good development.

I think I bring a perspective that local communities are what make this country great, and they are the laboratories of democracy.

A good society is characterised not just by liberty but by mutual respect and responsibility. When this breaks down it takes a lot more than police officers to put things right.

Our policies should be to help develop civil society and increase contacts with people.

As a country, we still have a lot of work to do. We need to agree on some basic rules for civil discourse.