Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

Theaters are always going to be around, and doing fine. With computers and technology, we're becoming more and more secluded from each other. And the movie theater is one of the last places where we can still gather and experience something together. I don't think the desire for that magic will ever go away.

We don't function well as human beings when we're in isolation.

More and more of us live segmented, compartmentalized lives. This isn't natural. For millions of years, our forebears knew everyone around them and everyone knew them.

I enjoy the company of my fellow man and woman, and I do not wish to be sequestered away in any type of bubble.

I want to be around people, not crickets.

Life is lived in common, but not in community.

With everything that you can imagine at our fingertips, many of the social interactions that help tie people together in a community have faded away. Are communities traditionally built on relationships, trust and familiarity a thing of the past?

For me, Los Angeles, New York, where I don't know my neighbors, where people don't necessarily care if they know their neighbors, I'm missing things that truly fed my soul when I was younger, the exchanges between people, the caring and the shared history with people.

Think about back in the day when we had Archie Bunker, 'The Jeffersons.' We had stuff to sit down and share and laugh at. The Internet has made it so we don't have to sit together anymore. It's so self-absorbed. No one has to talk to each other anymore, and people don't realize that that is killing us.

We haven't evolved as loners, we need each other. It's easy to believe in the illusion of technology bringing us closer together. But if you were to protest that and say, 'I'm not going to use a smartphone, I'm not going to use email, I'm not going to use social media,' it's like you're no longer a part of humanity.

If you live in a big city, and you're surrounded by people, you're way more in touch with humanity than you would be if you lived in a very remote area and just spent all day long on the computer.

Society than solitude is worse, And man to man is still the greatest curse.

God created us to thrive on encouragement from others

It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is fro+m among such individuals that all human failures spring.

I don't doubt that a man can live perfectly well on his own, but I'm convinced that he begins to die as soon as he closes the door of his house behind him.

Can it be possible that all human sympathies can thrive, and all human powers be exercised, and all human joys increase, if we live with all our might with the thirty or forty people next to us, telegraphing kindly to all other people, to be sure? Can it be possible that our passion for large cities, and large parties, and large theatres, and large churches, develops no faith nor hope nor love which would not find aliment and exercise in a little "world of our own"?

When God sets His heart on you, you will be tried often. But the longer and harder your affliction, the more deeply God has set His heart on you, to show you His love and care.

I cannot live without people. I need to live my life with others.

And one of the three great things in the world is gossip, you know. First there's religion; and then there's science; and there's-and then there's friendly gossip. Those are the three-the three great things.

The best of life is conversation.

Every person is defined by the communities she belongs to.

I cannot go to the houses of my nearest relatives, because I do not wish to be alone. Society exists by chemical affinity, and not otherwise.

Every man lives by exchanging.

I realized that the people weren't just characters but they were people and they were getting to do something that was so fun and I wanted to be a part of it.

My favorite sign here says, "I care about you." In a culture that trains people to avoid each other's gaze, to say, "Let them die," that is a deeply radical statement.