I believe in the fundamental
truth of all great religions of the world. I believe that they
are all God-given and I believe that they were necessary for the people to
whom
these religions were revealed. And I believe that if only we could, all of
us, read
the scriptures of the different faiths from the standpoint of the
followers of these faiths,
we should find that they were, at the bottom, all one and were all helpful
to one another.
Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi
An individual has not
started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his
individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
For alongside our famous
individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga,
a belief that we're all connected as one people. If there is a child on
the south side
of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my
child...If there's an
Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or
due process,
that threatens my civil liberties. It is that fundamental belief: I am my
brother's keeper.
I am my sister's keeper that makes this country work. It's what allows us
to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one
American family.
E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one."
Barack Obama
