“Where any work can be done conformably to the reason which is common to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear; for where we are able to get profit by means of the activity which is successful and proceeds according to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected.”

— Marcus Aurelius , book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VII, 53

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Marcus Aurelius 400

Emperor of Ancient Rome 121–180

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“Where any work can be done conformably to the reason which is common to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VII, 53
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII
Context: Where any work can be done conformably to the reason which is common to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear; for where we are able to get profit by means of the activity which is successful and proceeds according to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected.

“In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of "the common good" and then acted out in life on the basis of the common greed. In this world irrationality clings to man like his shadow so that the right things get done for the wrong reasons—afterwards, we dredge up the right reasons for justification. It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral; a world where "reconciliation" means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it, then we have reconciliation.”

Saul D. Alinsky (1909–1972) American community organizer and writer

Source: Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), p. 13

“At the constitutional level where we work, ninety percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Reported in Justice William O. Douglas, The Court Years (1980), p. 8

“We should have a State in which we could live and breathe as free men and which we could develop according to our own lights and culture and where principles of Islamic social justice could find free play.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Address to Civil, Naval, Military and Air Force Officers of Pakistan Government, Karachi (11 October 1947)

“We are socialists because we believe this income which we all cooperate in making isn’t divided as it ought to be. […] We do reward men according to deed. We do reward or give to people according to need. No religion would be possible in which that wasn’t done. There are the young, there are the old, there are many whom we have to reward according to their need. But in spite of improvements that have been made, and especially perhaps by my liberal friends who aren't just sure how far to go… we still have a society where there's a great deal of reward not according to deed, not according to need, but according to breed - the choice of your grandfather is very important. And according to the successful greed, which operates not in terms of great contributions to men, but in terms of manipulations of one sort of another.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

Debate with Barry Goldwater, University of Arizona campus, Tucson, Arizona, November 1961

“America: A place where we can be a part of something bigger. A place where we can contribute our talents and fulfill our ambitions and secure new opportunity for ourselves and for others. A place where we can retain pride in our heritage, but where we recognize that we have a common creed, a loyalty to these documents, a loyalty to our democracy; where we can criticize our government, but understand that we love it; where we agree to live together even when we don’t agree with each other; where we work through the democratic process, and not through violence or sectarianism to resolve disputes; where we live side by side as neighbors; and where our children know themselves to be a part of this nation, no longer strangers, but the bedrock of this nation, the essence of this nation.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Naturalization Ceremony speech (December 2015)

“Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

Source: Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics (1982), Ch. 6 : Building Community : Processes for Groups, p. 92
Context: We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.

“The idea of a God we infer from our experimental dependence on something superior to ourselves in wisdom, power and goodness, which we call God; our senses discover to us the works of God which we call nature, and which is a manifest demonstration of his invisible essence. Thus it is from the works of nature that we deduce the knowledge of a God, and not because we have, or can have any immediate knowledge of, or revelation from him.”

Ethan Allen (1738–1789) American general

Source: Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man (1784), Ch. V Section II - Containing Observations on the Providence and Agency of God, as it Respects the Natural and Moral World, with Strictures on Revelation in General

“We need 720,000 men continuously employed in this industry. This is where you boys come in. Our fighting men will not be able to achieve their purpose unless we get an adequate supply of coal.”

Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) British labour leader, politician, and statesman

Hansard HC 6ser vol 449 col 841 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060725/debtext/60725-1076.htm
Speech to recruiting meeting, December 1943. Bevin had introduced a system whereby some men conscripted for National Service would be transferred to working in coal-mining; because of this speech, they were known as 'Bevin boys'.

“God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and any other men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race and the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers and where every man will respect the dignity and the worth of human personality. This is what we work for and this is the good society which we must seek in America. But it will not come until enough people are willing to stand up and mobilize forces of good will, to seek to implement that which is just and right.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

“Where any work can be done conformably to the reason which is common to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear; for where we are able to get profit by means of the activity which is successful and proceeds according to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected.”

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Marcus Aurelius 400

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