Cooperative Living Quotes

Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite.

To be a socialist means to let the ego serve the neighbour, to sacrifice the self for the whole. In its deepest sense socialism equals service. The individual refrains and the commonwealth demands.

My idea of village SWARAJ is that is a complete republic, independent of its neighbors for its own vital wants, and yet interdependent for many others which dependence is a necessity.

Christian society is like a bundle of sticks laid together, whereof one kindles another. Solitary men have fewest provocations to evil, but, again, fewest incitations to good. So much as doing good is better than not doing evil will I account Christian good-fellowship better than an hermitish and melancholy solitariness.

If they do not share equally enjoyments and toils, those who labor much and get little will necessarily complain of those who labor little and receive or consume much. But indeed there is always a difficulty in men living together and having all human relations in common, but especially in their having common property.

What is … important is that we — number one: Learn to live with each other. Number two: try to bring out the best in each other. The best from the best, and the best from those who, perhaps, might not have the same endowment. And so this bespeaks an entirely different philosophy — a different way of life — a different kind of relationship — where the object is not to put down the other, but to raise up the other.

We must at last put a stop to having people move into their quarters like chickens and rabbits into their coops.

When I talk about 'everyday communism', I am teasing a little. It is a provocative idea. But then we all do a lot of sharing a lot of the time. We don't draw up contracts for everything.

If people in America would get their finances together and start taking care of each other, we could put the government out of business.

A truly common culture is not one in which we all think alike, or in which we all believe that fairness is next to godliness, but one in which everyone is allowed to be in on the project of cooperatively shaping a common way of life.

I'd like to start some form of city-type commune.

(There is) art that states the problems of society and wakes people up to make changes in their lives or in their communities,...art that offers an alternative, that demonstrates human behavior that can become a model for creativity, cooperation, freedom and playfulness, and...art that in itself provides glimpses of a larger consciousness or reflects upon the inexplicable.

Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.

Most people are participating in the grand adventure of living with one another.

I kind of grew up in a commune, but it wasn't a hippie commune necessarily, but it was a big house with a lot of families, we all lived together and it was the 70s, whatever that means.

In the natural order no matter what ideals may be theoretically possible, most people more or less live for themselves and for their own interests and pleasures or for those of their own family or group, and therefore they are constantly interfering with one another's aims, and hurting one another and injuring one another, whether they mean it or not.

A commune is where people join together to share their lack of wealth.

There's something great about the idea of working the land and living communally. That's healthy. That's good.

My communism attempts basically to create a shared society, that's all; a shared society in which individuality will flourish, along with love, and along with mutual respect.

My religion is a religion of sharing, not of following

I could live in a community like 'Fortitude.'

The communal life of human beings had . . . a two-fold foundation: the compulsion to work, which was created by external necessity, and the power of love.

The Occupy movement did create spontaneously communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important.

The origin of civilization is man's determination to do nothing for himself which he can get done for him.