Share

“ Here you are among friends—friends who share not only one or two, but all the articles of your political faith, whether they touch constitutional principles, or the tariff, or the currency, or the reform of the public service; friends devoted heart and soul to the great cause you represent, and heart and soul devoted to you, because you honestly and courageously represent it. ”

“ To supply individuals and the community with what they need. 2. To secure an equal share to each individual, other circumstances being the same. 3. To keep the peace and promote industry and plenty, by proportioning each man’s share to his own exertions, or to the good-will and discretion of others. ”

“ In whatever you do, seek to make it possible for all to have a share by seeing that every thought is expressed within the intelligence of even the younger members, that is, of those who desire to have a share. ”

“ Everything that the indi- vidual man uses in his work and in his pleasures, the tools with which he works, the food, clothing, luxuries which he enjoys, even the language with which he thinks, is the joint product of all society past and present. These are all simply the services which his fellow-men everywhere are contributing to his life. Society is mutual service. But the motive which leads each individual to contribute his share to the joint pro- duct is mainly the share which he and those whom he loves can get in return. Society is opportunity. ”

“ But as they are united as one, show compassion to each other, share with each other, and are benefactors to each other, so should man below behave. The rich and the poor should be united together as one, and should share with each other and be benefactors to each other. ”

“ Or if I speak of a share or participation it is a sharing in the sense of entering into a kindred life. It is an ideal, and an ideal for378 a conscious personal being can hardly be other than conscious. ”

“ If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because you'd think I should like to share those good things; but I should like better to share in your trouble and your labour, and it would seem harder to me if you denied me that. ”

“ I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; ”

“ Considerations, or perhaps rather conventional preconceptions, running on other grounds, as, for instance, on grounds of superstition or religion, of propriety and gentility, of pecuniary or political expediency, have come in for a large share in ordering the institutions of family and neighbourhood life. ”

“ May we be sharers of the powers, sharers of the benevolence Of you who give strength bounteously. 5. Indra and Varuna, among givers of thousands, meet for praise, Are Powers who merit highest laud. 6. Through their protection may we gain great store of wealth, and heap it up Enough and still to spare, be ours. ”

“ One should rather conclude that in distributing larger shares to some and smaller shares to others, nature has intended to give occasion for brotherly love to become manifest, some of us having the strength to give help to others who are in need of it. ”

“ Kind words and loving deeds are as pebbles cast upon the great sea of humanity, the ever-widening circle of whose influence extends beyond the limited vision of him who projects them; and the eternal ages alone will reveal how many souls have been saved, and saved forever, as the grand result. How many girls and boys are watching every opportunity to share in this blessed work? ”

“ Do right for your own sake, and be happy in knowing that your neighbor will certainly share in the benefits resulting. ”

“ In order to have a large number of values in common, all the members of the group must have an equable opportunity to receive and to take from others. There must be a large variety of shared undertakings and experiences. ”

“ In the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice. ”

“ Might I be permitted here to say what should be the chief object of all social parties whatever, I would decide that it should be mutual improvement, and that the individuals who compose them should consider themselves as members of a kind of joint stock company, met, on such occasions, to perfect each other in their parts, as performers in the great drama of human life—that whenever called on to act, they might acquit themselves most naturally, agreeably, and usefully, both to themselves and others. ”

“ How much is left undone, for the sake of society! But let us pause a moment, and ask what society is. Is it a community of tried and trusted friends, united together by the ties of perfect love? Listen to the remarks of those, even of your own family, who return from the evening party, or the morning call. Is it a community of beings with whom mind is all in all, and intellectual improvement the purpose for which they meet? Observe the preparations that are made—the dress, the furniture, the food, the expense that is lavished upon these. ”

“ That bond is deeper than all national bonds, than all blood-bonds, than community of race, than family, than friendship, than social ties, than community of opinion, than community of purpose and action. ”

“ A large number, bound together by the strong ties of family affection, and taking hold of business in a united capacity, will be able, most frequently, to accomplish more than the same number of individuals acting separately, and governed only by individual interest. ”

“ Let us remind them that we are all embarked together, with a common interest and a common fate. And let us, without rebuke or unkindness, beseech them to consider what the good of the whole requires, what is best for them and for us. ”

“ Let us look then at life just as it is. Here we find ourselves involved with one another in the most complex relations—economic, political, social, domestic, and the rest; and about and in these relations centres the interest of our life, whether it be pleasurable or painful, empty or full, or whatever its character. ”

“ Notwithstanding some differences of opinion upon some points, upon this one point that I have endeavored to set before you in my last few sentences, there has been an unanimity of feeling and opinion, that is of the imperative necessity of our being united in our business matters, in our financial matters and work to sustain each other and build each other up. ”

“ This great business organisation appealed to the enlightened self-interest of all classes of people, and drew them into closer relations with each other as one family, and cultivated feelings of fraternal regard for each other that will be imperishable. ”

“ In the relations between employer and employee, for instance, profit sharing is the most practical form of realizing this community of interest. Such action involves a co-operation of interests as the motives of the individual act. ”

“ Business patronage, professional advancement, a tempting family alliance, the entrée into some select and envied circle—such are the things for which creeds are bartered, for which men put their [428] souls and the souls of their children knowingly in peril. ”

“ Society is made up of various units, lending to one another support by the mutual participation in the activities of life. The family—the first in order of time and dignity—is beyond doubt the principal and central unit. ”

“ But in actual life it is oftener the latter that is prominent in our relations with our fellow-men. We—the category of co-operation—is at least as fundamental in all human thought and language as I and thou, the categories of mutual exclusion. That you and I are mutually complementary factors in a wider whole of common interests, is at least as early a discovery of mankind as that our private interests and standpoints collide. ”

“ Whatever means or time or property might be devoted by the community for the establishing of any certain enterprise, would be done in good faith, for every heart would be inspired with confidence, every one considering his interest identified with that of the whole. ”

“ In many of our business relations one with another, there does not exist that spirit of union and brotherly interest which should be maintained. We need to take a course that will enable us to acquire it, and this spirit should prevail throughout all our settlements. ”

“ Here at last were order and reason, an exhibition of what intelligent coöperation can accomplish. The people who stood looking on with kindling faces,—could it be that the sight had for them no more than but a spectacular interest? ”

“ The very sacredness of the relation in which two men stand to one another when one of them rescues the other from vice separates that relation from any connection with the work of the social busybody, the professional philanthropist, and the empirical legislator. ”

“ You will thus see that in this wider sense all creation moved together like a vast joint-stock co-operative society, each kind working consciously for its own good alone, but each also in a certain deeper and unconscious way contributing to the general well-being of all, by its exercise of some special function. ”

“ To have the same pursuits of business with another may be a result of accident or position; to have the same pleasures, being a matter of choice, argues a community of nature in the moral sensibilities, in that part of our constitution which differences one man from another in the capacities of greatness and elevation. ”

“ When perverted, it forms attachments for the low, vulgar, or vicious, and leads to bad company. Adapted to man’s [Pg 57] requisition for concert of action, co-partnership, combination, and community of feeling and interest, and is a leading element of his social relations. ”

“ Now it happens that some of the more advanced members of the family of Truth fight their way into "good society," and make matrimonial alliances with some of the poor relations of the family of Interest. ”

“ We shall make our division on the principle of proceeding from the most general, or those which relate to society in its most extensive sense, to those which are less general, relating to society in its more specific and determinate sense, and finally to those which are the most particular, relating to separate portions and members of society, to the family and to the individual. ”

“ In the one case, we are saved one by one, by effort, response, growth; in the other, we are saved as members of a group. Here the individual and the corporate ideals in their most intense forms face one another. ”

“ The larger part of the collective existence of every community is consumed in transactions of buying and selling, of letting and hiring, of alliances between men for purposes of business, of delegation of business from one man to another ”

“ In this way we put into motion, between two elements of our people which there are always more than enough influences to hold sufficiently apart, a joint pursuit of the same refining delight and so promoted the fellowship of an unconflicting common interest. ”

“ These persons are united by community of interest into a group, or class, or interest, and, when interests come to be adjusted, the interests of this group will undoubtedly be limited by those of other groups. ”

“ We may add that in such a union, beyond the mere material benefit, there naturally arises a moral influence of considerable power; and of this we have experienced the advantage; our connection having been sufficiently close to give to each of us, in a great measure, the benefit of the experience, knowledge, and judgment, of all the others, and to secure to each that friendly advice of which every one, some time or other, stands in need. ”

“ This relation, in which the mutual rendering of services is unforced and neither individual subordinated, becomes the predominant relation throughout society, in proportion as the industrial activities predominate. Daily determining the thoughts and sentiments, daily disciplining all in asserting their own claims, while forcing them to recognize the correlative claims of others, it produces social units whose mental structures and habits mould social arrangements into corresponding forms. ”

“ We believe in association—which is but the reduction to action of our faith in one sole God, and one sole law, and one sole aim—as the only means we possess of realising the truth; as the method of progress; the path leading towards perfection. The highest possible degree of human progress will correspond to the discovery and application of the vastest formula of association. ”

“ We were not born to work together and it is clear that we have come to the parting of the ways. To-morrow we will make division of our holdings, for I tell you plainly that I will have no more to do with you and your dishonest schemes. ”

“ In every Regular Human Society, there is a Passionate Love amongst the Associated Parts, like fellow-Students of one Colledg, or fellow-Servants in one House, or Brethren in one Family, or Subjects in one Nation, or Communicants in one Church: So the Self-moving Parts of a Human Creature, being associated, love one another, and therefore do endeavour to keep their Society from dissolving. ”

“ Why can't you agree amongst yourselves,—make your bargain, and then divide the spoils quietly? It is the way your forefathers understood the law of commonage, and nobody ever grumbled that his neighbor had a cow or a pig too many! ”