Common Good Quotes

• America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Men, America

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.27, Penguin

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• Where people of goodwill get together and transcend their differences for the common good, peaceful and just solutions can be found even for those problems which seem most intractable.

  Nelson Mandela

  Differences, People, Peaceful

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations”, p.88, Pan Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Each of us must rededicate ourselves to serving the common good. We are a community. Our individual Fates are linked; our futures intertwined; and if we act in that knowledge and in that spirit together, as the Bible says: "We can move mountains."

  Jimmy Carter

  Moving, Fate, Community

  United States. President (1977-1981 : Carter), Jimmy Carter (1978). “Jimmy Carter”

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Make sure your intentions are not only for yourself, but also for the common good.

  Deepak Chopra

  Common, Intention

  5 Copy quote

• To blend, without coercion, the individual good and the common good is the essence of citizenship in a free country.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Country, Essence, Coercion

  Dwight D. Eisenhower's Columbia University Inaugural Addres, October 12, 1948.

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Careers, Community Service, Helping

  32 Copy quote

• It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong.

  Aristotle

  Justice, Political, Common

  11 Copy quote

• I have seen Americans making great and sincere sacrifices for the key common good and a hundred times I have noticed that, when needs be, they almost always gave each other faithful support

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Sacrifice, Keys, Support

  42 Copy quote

• It is important for the common good to foster individuality: for only the individual can produce the new ideas which the community needs for its continuous improvement and
  requirements - indeed, to avoid sterility and petrification

  Albert Einstein

  Ideas, Community, Individuality

  Albert Einstein (2010). “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein”, p.434, Princeton University Press

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everyone has to contribute to the common good. To not do so can be described in one word: selfish.

  Randy Pausch

  Selfish, Common, One Word

  Randy Pausch (2008). “The Last Lecture”, p.187, Hachette UK

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• All men were created to busy themselves with the labor for the common good.

  John Calvin

  Men, Common, Busy

  6 Copy quote

• There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Leadership, Sports, Spiritual

  43 Copy quote

• Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Law, Community, Care

  St Thomas Aquinas (2013). “Summa Theologica, Volume 2 (Part II, First Section)”, p.995, Cosimo, Inc.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• No decisions should ever be made without asking the question, is this for the common good?

  Michael Moore

  Decision, Asking, Common

  5 Copy quote

• When the common good of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Animal, Men

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.19, Penguin

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• We live in the age of "Everything Has Rights." Now, I'm not denying that the concept of rights is valid, but I wonder … whatever happened to obligations? One rarely hears the term anymore. Indeed, have you ever heard of a "human obligations movement?" … The very ideal that holds a democracy together--the willingness to make personal sacrifice for the common good--is going quickly by the wayside.

  John Rosemond

  Responsibility, Sacrifice, Rights

  28 Copy quote

• Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, Generosity, Trying

  Richard Dawkins (2016). “The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition”, p.25, Oxford University Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• There could never be enough rules so finely crafted as to anticipate and cover every situation, and even if there were, enforcement would be impossibly expensive and burdensome. This approach leads to diminished freedom for everyone...In the end, it is only an internal moral compass in each individual that can effectively deal with the root causes as well as the symptoms of societal decay. Societies will struggle in vain to establish the common good until sin is denounced as sin and moral discipline takes its place in the pantheon of civic virtues.

  D. Todd Christofferson

  Struggle, Roots, Discipline

  37 Copy quote

• The aim of every political Constitution, is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.

  James Madison

  Trust, Men, Political

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2003). “The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus”, p.277, Cambridge University Press

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Once we are bound together to our brothers by a common good that is outside us, then we can breathe. Experience teaches us that love is not to gaze at one another but to gaze in the same direction. There is no comradeship except through unity on the same rope, climbing towards the same peak.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Brother, Love Is, Climbing

  21 Copy quote

• History calls those men the greatest who have ennobled themselves by working for the common good; experience acclaims as happiest the man who has made the greatest number of people happy.

  Karl Marx

  Men, Numbers, People

  Karl Marx (1975). “Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Collected Works”, International Pub

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good ... for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for neighbors.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Caring, Perfect, Definitions

  35 Copy quote

• There is no higher religion than human service.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Community Service, Helping, Public Service

  44 Copy quote

• A system of world order-preferably a system of world government -is mandatory... The proud nations someday will see the light and, for the common good and their own survival, yield up their precious sovereignty.

  Walter Cronkite

  Order, World Government, Yield

  7 Copy quote

• That future depends on the values of self-government, our sense of duty, loyalty, self-confidence and regard for the common good. We are a diverse country, and getting more diverse. And these virtues are what keep this great country together.

  Jeff Miller

  Loyalty, Country, Self Confidence

  8 Copy quote