Daniel Patrick Moynihan Quotes

A people cannot exist if there is no social solidarity.

The feeling of community… is really what gives a sense, a purpose to a society.

People who get together, regardless of other structures, will find something in common. They are bound to. That was the Pete Seeger let's-all-sing theory.

Earlier pluralist societies destroyed themselves because no one took care of the common good. They abounded in communities but could not sustain community, let alone create it.

Sports can bring people together in a way that politics cannot.

We care about shared values, culture and identity.

In South Africa, we kind of like looking for things that unite people in big, big groups.

I think that we're more united than the media would care to admit. We're not as divided as the perception would relay - not in the United States, not anywhere, really, in the world.

Every society rests in the last resort on the recognition of common principles and common ideals, and if it makes no moral or spiritual appeal to the loyalty of its members, it must inevitably fall to pieces.

I'm interested in what bonds people together. You know, what brings us together in good ways? And there's not a lot known about that.

Not much about California, on its own preferred terms, has encouraged its children to see themselves as connected to one another.

When the sense of solidarity has been developed to such a point that each one feels the cause of all others as his own, we shall be drawing near to international and to social peace.

When all is said and done, the real citadel of strength of any community is in the hearts and minds and desires of those who dwell there.

You can't walk alone. Many have given the illusion, but none have really walked alone. Man is not made that way. Each man is bedded in his people, their history, their culture, and their values.

We have much more in common with other people than we have apart.

And suddenly, like light in darkness, the real truth broke in upon me; the simple fact of Man, which I had forgotten, which had lain deep buried and out of sight; the idea of community, of unity.

In community people remain essentially united in spite of all separating factors, while in society they are essentially separated in spite of all uniting factors.

It is a community of purpose that constitutes society.

In the stable periods of history, meaning was supplied in the context of a coherent community and traditionally prescribed patterns of culture. Today we cannot count on any such inheritance.

We are a people in search of community.

E Pluribus Unum, the Latin phrase on the great seal of the United States literally translated means one from many. We need to reattach pluribus to unum—the many to the one.

In America, by and large, in the middle of the road you find us, we the people.

Every man cannot have his way in all things…Without this mutual disposition, we are disjointed individuals, but not a society

… we need to know ourselves, not only our own little group or our own little part of the country, but the country as a whole and all its people. This will inspire in us an even greater fervor of spirit to see our country attain the ideals we have always cherished.

It's nice on the daytime format to focus on things that connect us.