Collective Values Quotes

But a society that has nothing to die for has nothing to live for . . .

Cultural standards evolve. The meaning of the public interest also, of course, evolves.

The African…regards the Universe as one composite whole; an organic entity, progressively driving towards greater harmony and unity whose individual parts exist merely as interdependent aspects of one whole realizing their fullest value in the corporate life where communal contentment is the absolute measure of values.

If one asks the whence derives the authority of fundamental ends, since they cannot be stated and justified merely by reason, one can only answer: they exist in a healthy society as powerful traditions, which act upon the conduct and aspirations and judgments of the individuals; they are there, that is, as something living, without its being necessary to find justification for their existence.

No member of any society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.

The struggle for your own character is the struggle for the nation's character.

I'll tell you what's the greatest power under heaven, and that is public opinion-the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful. That's the steam that is to work the engines.

Without a common loyalty to either a state or a church they have nevertheless a vast deal in common.

But all our differences hardly measure up to the values we all hold in common.

I don't think morality can be decided on the private level. I think you need public guidance and public support for a moral consensus. The average person has to know instinctively, without thinking too much about it, how he should raise his children.

The ultimate foundation of a free society is the binding tie of cohesive sentiment.

It seems to me that more and more we've come to expect less and less from each other, and I think that should change.

… keeper of the national conscience

National character cannot be built by law. It is the sum of the moral fiber of its individuals.

We do not just blindly concede control to authorities; instead we follow the cues provided by our moral communities on how best to behave.

National events determine our ideals, as much as our ideals determine national events.

Our lives our guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.

In the States, there has been, compared to the Sixties and Seventies, a huge retrenchment - not just in poetry - into the personal. A withdrawal from thinking in terms of social and collective values, needs and solutions. The consciousness-raising groups of the women's movement, for instance, becoming "support-groups" or therapy groups.

Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.

It's all about a war of social impulses and beliefs that is as powerful in its way as a big hurricane.

What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike.

It lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.

At this level, the individual perceives the maintenance of the expectations of his family, group, or nation as valuable in its own right, regardless of immediate and obvious consequences.

People forget that art is not just a piece of entertainment. It is the place where we collectively declare our values and then act on them. That's one of the most powerful things we have as a community: our culture and our art. And it's the intersection between life and how people deal with life. It's the most important thing we do.

I can't be the big star in the family. We have a family, and we are all equal.