Sharing

“ 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. ”

“ Consequently, rewards and incentives will shift to reflect appreciation for sharing and communal building at the expense of individualism and unhealthy competition. Conversely, if we wait for systemic policies to change before we start collaborating, then we have only ourselves to blame if the system’s values are never shifted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One of them in particular, by his kindness, so engaged my affection and gratitude, that we became inseparable companions, and shortly after the commencement of our friendship, we mutually agreed to build a nest together. Ah! then it was that I first knew the delights of liberty and society. Our labours, sweetened by affection, were converted into pleasures; while hope, displaying to our imagination the little brood nourished by our mutual toils, and reared by our mutual cares, imparted a new relish to every enjoyment. ”

“ Well, first and foremost, that every individual creature shall come to its own particular and in [270] dividual fullness of being.—Very nice, very pretty—but how? Well, through a living dynamic relation to other creatures.—Very nice again, pretty little adjectives. But what sort of a living dynamic relation?—Well, not the relation of love, that's one thing, nor of brotherhood, nor equality. The next relation has got to be a relationship of men towards men in a spirit of unfathomable trust and responsibility, service and leadership, obedience and pure authority. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Love, sympathy, fellowship, is what makes human life truly human. Cooperation, mutual service, is its fruitage. A clear-cut realisation of this and a resolute acting upon it would remove much of the cloudiness and [Pg 232] the barrenness from many a life; and its mutual recognition—and action based upon it—would bring order and sweetness and mutual gain in vast numbers of instances in family, in business, in community life. It would solve many of the knotty problems in all lines of human relations and human endeavour, whose solution heretofore has seemed well-nigh impossible. ”

“ Each person is connected with every other person by some bond of attachment. It may be by the steel bond of brotherhood, by the silvern chain of religious fellowship, by the golden band of conjugal affection, by the flaxen cord of parental or filial love, or by the silken tie of friendship. One or more of these bonds of attachment may encircle each person, and each bond has its varying strength, and is capable of endless lengthening and contracting. ”

“ There may, perhaps, also be obscure workmen, or humble citizens—perhaps, also, alas! great criminals.
“‘However, this may be, my most earnest desire is that my descendants should combine together, and, reconstituting one family, by a close and sincere union, put into practice the divine words of Christ, “Love ye one another.”
“‘This union would have a salutary tendency; for it seems to me that upon union, upon the association of men together, must depend the future happiness of mankind. ”

“ There's No living in This World without an Exchange of Civil Offices, and the Need we have One of Another, goes a Great Way toward the Making of us Love One Another. How is this Amity, and Communication to be entertain'd now, but by the Commerce of Giving and Receiving? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Courtship, love, presents, jointures, settlements, have no place in their thoughts; or terms whereby to express them in their language. The young couple meet, and are joined, merely because it is the determination of their parents and friends; it is what they see done every day, and they look upon it as one of the necessary actions of a reasonable being. ”

“ I look around among the world of mankind and see them grabbing, scrambling, contending, and every one seeking to aggrandize himself, and to accomplish his own individual purposes, passing the community by, walking upon the heads of his neighbors—all are seeking, planning, contriving in their wakeful hours, and when asleep dreaming," How can I get the advantage of my neighbor? ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the interests of that single person, were found, upon experience, so complicated and woven with the rest, by love, by awe, by marriage, by alliance, that they would rather confound Heaven and earth, than dissolve such a union. ”

“ Every group seemed just across the hall, and the various labels bearing the names of the cities they represented were simply greetings from the various members of the family. Love unifies, and cooperation is the manifestation of love. ”

“ The enlargement of human association, on the other hand, increases sympathy and coöperation among men, and paves the way to the cultivation of the mutual respect and regard which is the basis of social virtue. ”

“ Tho’ we are to treat all mankind as neighbour and brethren, as occasion offers; yet as we can only live in the actual society of a few, and are more particularly related to some than others; so when our intercession is made an exercise of love and care for those amongst whom our lot is fallen, or who belong to us in a nearer relation, it then becomes the greatest benefit to ourselves. ”

“ Here is indeed a gathering of scattered kinsfolk, but it is no gathering of dependencies round a common mistress or even round a common mother. It is the picture of something nobler; the picture of scattered communities, free and equal, gathered together in a common home and rejoicing in the tie of common brotherhood. ”

“ And that there should be intelligent agreement, a community of thought and feeling, on all matters of importance, is surely the first necessity for the healthy and harmonious development of family life. ”

“ Here we find most marked the personal affection, the intimate companionship, the community of interests, the common responsibility and care for the children, which are the characteristics of the family. The related life of the group so formed constitutes domestic life. ”

“ As you say, we have eaten and walked and talked together as freely as children for more than two years. In that time we have become well acquainted—not the poor, shallow acquaintance of formal society, but the near, intimate association of two human beings who honestly express themselves to each other. ”

“ By an alliance of mutual affection and interests for life, it secures their highest development, and the most complete and undisturbed enjoyment of their benefits. It identifies the honor and interests of parents and children, securing affectionate protectors for helpless infancy, faithful guardians for inexperienced youth, and interested tutors for fitting the rising generation for the useful and noble stations of society ”

“ Still, the relations of friendship and kinship are not themselves born, nor do they die and all friends abroad and kin at home live and move and have their being only in these. Does it destroy or even weaken the meaning or the reality of friendship to have it said that the relation is as universal as particular or local, and as eternal as temporal? Is a relationship worth less than any one of its manifestations? Why, the universality of the relationship gives meaning or reality to any manifestation. ”

“ How many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual goodwill, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight ”

“ Touch and sight, physical contact, are the basis for the first and most elementary human relationships. Mother and child, husband and wife, father and son, master and servant, kinsman and neighbor, minister, physician, and teacher—these are the most intimate and real relationships of life and in the small community they are practically inclusive. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Carried far enough, this principle, which makes one's neighbor a second self, will bring to light in us the common soul, the common life that has tacitly worked in all human intercourse from the beginning. ”

“ The creation of relationships—that of spouse to spouse, parent to child, child to child, and child to parent, in which the growth of many virtues useful to society are fostered and cultivated: a sense of responsibility, self-respect, fidelity, early associations of devotion and gratitude, the sense of traditional continuity which gives rise to the feeling of dignity, honour, obligation, and individual rights, claims and duties. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Others, with a still more contracted view, remembering the pleasant reunions at their lodge banquets, the unreserved communications which are thus encouraged, and the solemn obligations of mutual trust and confidence that are continually inculcated, believe that it was intended solely to promote the social sentiments and cement the bonds of friendship. ”

“ So in my fanciful moments I have imagined may society be, when the two great branches of humanity's noblest family, which have been separated so long, will consent not only to meet, but to meet on the same ground ”

“ The social body, whether we consider the family, or the gathering of families into communities, or the collection of communities into nations, or the multitude of nations which form the population of the earth, may be regarded as an aggregate which should be pervaded by such ideas as are found essential for the comfort and happiness of gatherings casually brought together. ”

“ Never having kept separate company or any 'company' together—never having read separate books and few books together, what knowledge have we to convey to each other? In our little range of duties and connections how few sentiments can take place without friends, with few books, with a taste for religion rather than a strong religious habit! ”

“ It was the first group to develop, by virtue of its conscious relationship, the sense of trust and the habit of service of the stronger to the weaker, thus leading toward mutual aid within an area of affection and good-will. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The co-operation is involuntary, and is put upon us by the Genius of Life, who reserves this as a part of his prerogative. ’Tis fine for us to talk, we sit and muse, and are serene and complete; but the moment we meet with anybody, each becomes a fraction. ”

“ Learn to keep the peace, yea for hours at a time. If you are in a mixed company, cultivate the dictum of "give and take." Be not for ever doling out your scraps of mirth to the dyspeptic stomachs of your associates. A wise reciprocity and interplay of merriment is the best rule—a fair share among the entire party. Burns himself, sparkling talker as he was, is recorded to have been at times sunk in gloom and shadow. ”

“ I am offering you, dear friend, that which is vastly higher than the union of the merely animal, which is based wholly upon the purely physical and material attraction. I am proposing marriage of our souls—a union, if you please, of our higher intellectual and spiritual selves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A common purpose, the same society, the participation of the same amusements and pleasures, facilitate the formation of many interesting connexions. The opportunities of mutual intercourse are numerous: the social meetings are not hampered by the trammels of ceremony, and we readily acknowledge and enjoy mental and social talents wherever we meet with them. ”

“ Almost equally universal is the belief that close relatives, as being ingredients in—or perhaps rather partakers of—the same whole, the family, are bound together in a quite material solidarity of suffering. ”

“ In that rude state of social life, in which languages had their origin, the inventor of a word probably thought of little more, than the temporary facility, which it might give to himself and his companions, in communicating their mutual wants, and concerting their mutual schemes of co-operation. ”