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Interdependence is a recognition of our mutual dependence on each other

• Interdependence: The dependence of two or more people or things on each other.  Oxford Dictionary
• Interdependence is a relationship in which each member is mutually dependent on the others. This concept differs from a dependence relationship, where some members are dependent, and some are not. Wikipedia
• Teamwork,  Cooperation,  Unity,  Collaboration,  Connectedness,  Independence

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Interdependence is recognising that what affects one directly, affects all indirectly

• All are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.  Martin Luther King, Jr.
• One could not pluck a flower without troubling a star. Francis Thompson
• Our environment is like a patchwork quilt. Each “patch” is dependent on those around it. If one part unravels, it affects the rest. Hemeon
• We are all connected to everyone and everything in the universe. Therefore, everything one does as an individual affects the whole. All thoughts, words, images, prayers, blessings, and deeds are listened to by all that is.  Serge Kahili King

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Interdependence is recognising we are all part of the whole

• People may be said to resemble not the bricks of which a house is built, but the pieces of a picture puzzle, each differing in shape, but matching the rest, and thus bringing out the picture. Felix Adler
• The process of expanding identification is not merely psychological but is grounded in reality. The process of identification is possible because there is an underlying whole of which we are, each of us, a part. Arne Naess
• Unity,  Oneness

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Interdependence is recognising everything is connected

• Everything is alive; everything is interconnected. Cicero
• Every measured thing is part of a web of variables more richly interconnected than we know. Garrett Hardin
• We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men. Herman Melville
• Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. Leibniz
• All human beings are interconnected, one with all other elements in creation. Henry Reed
• This we know: All things are connected like the blood that unites us. We did not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.  Chief Seattle
• We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically. Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Connectedness

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Interdependence is recognising we exist only through relationships with other people or things

• Everything, including all people, exists only through relationships with other people or things. Nothing exists in isolation or absolute independence.  No person, or thing can arise of, for, or by its own accord.  Everything is interdependent.  Taro Gold

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Interdependence is recognising we’re all in the same boat

• We are all in the same boat, in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty G.K. Chesterton
• You cannot sink someone else’s end of the boat and still keep your own afloat. Charlie Brower

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Interdependence is recognising nothing exists in the universe in isolation

• When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It ‘inter-is’ with everything else in the universe. Thich Nhat Hahn
• The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the centre of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this centre is really everywhere, it is within each of us. Black Elk
• We know from science that nothing in the universe exists as an isolated or independent entity. Margaret J. Wheatley
• When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it is tied to everything else in the universe. John Muir
• There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe… At every crossing of the threads there is an individual. And every individual is a crystal bead. And every crystal bead reflects Not only the light from every other crystal in the net But also every other reflection Throughout the entire universe. Anne Adams

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Interdependence is recognising our destinies are bound up in one another’s

• If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another’s, that we can be free only together, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family. Desmond Tutu
• All life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• We cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs. Bill Clinton
• Destiny

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Interdependence is recognising we are here for the sake of each other

• From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other – above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. Albert Einstein
• Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality—not as we expect it to be but as it is—is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love. Frederick Buechner
• Service

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Interdependence is recognising you can never be what you ought to be until others are what they ought to be

• I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made. No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.  Martin Luther King, Jr
• The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. Jane Addams
• No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy. Herbert Spencer
• Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. Frederick Buechner

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Interdependence is recognising an act done to another is done to yourself

• Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it.  Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.  Chief Seattle
• Simply see that you are at the center of the universe and accept all things and beings as parts of your infinite body. When you perceive that an act done to another is done to yourself, you have understood the great truth.  Lao Tzu
• From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor’s interests without striking a dangerous blow at your own. Carl Schurz

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Interdependence is recognising that what we do to others boomerangs back to us

• Given the unity of all minds, what we do to others, and what we think about others, boomerangs back to us. If we wish to feel peace, then we must wish peace for others. And whatever punishment we wish upon others, we subconsciously attract to ourselves.  Marianne Williamson
• Karma

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Interdependence is recognising our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others

• Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others. Tenzin Gyatso
• Happiness

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Interdependence is recognising all great accomplishments and undertakings are joint efforts

• …I have seen that in any great undertaking it is not enough for a man to depend simply upon himself. Lone Man
• No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you. Althea Gibson
• Every successful individual knows that his or her achievement depends on a community of persons working together. Paul Ryan
• We exist as a community, yet we achieve as a team. Boris Pluskowski
• What cannot be achieved in one lifetime will happen when one lifetime is joined to another. Harold Kushner

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• Anyone who has no need of anybody but himself is either a beast or a God.  Aristotle
• Let’s face it. In most of life we really are interdependent. We need each other. Staunch independence is an illusion, but heavy dependence isn’t healthy, either. The only position of long-term strength is interdependence: win/win. Greg Anderson
• Life doesn’t make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all. Erik Erikson
• As Walker relates, His Holiness was talking about the myth of independence. If you are so independent, he asked, who grows your food? Who sews your clothes, builds your house, makes sure that water comes out of your showerhead? How were you even born? The fact is, he said, we have not done one single thing alone, without the help of a small army of others, and yet we walk around talking about the necessity and supremacy of independence. It’s completely irrational. Jean Twenge & Keith Campbell
• In reality there is no such thing as a “self-made man.” We got where we are with the support and actions of others. In fact, we have an interconnectedness that is so pervasive it’s easy to overlook. Mary Rosendale
• No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.  John Donne
• A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labor of other people, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. Albert Einstein
• Talking about independence makes me wonder, Who is truly independent in this world? A farmer who grows food is dependent on a baker, a barber, a doctor, and so on. A doctor is dependent on other people of different professions in order to survive. I am dependent and will be dependent on certain caregivers and therapists. Those caregivers and therapists need people like me to earn their bread and butter and draw their salaries. So no one is doing any favors when choosing whatever his means of livelihood is. Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay
• We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth. George Bernard Shaw
• Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else.  Nothing exists in isolation.  We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.  Margaret J. Wheatley

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Nowhere is interdependence more evident than in nature

• One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. William Shakespeare
• Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• When we speak of Nature it is wrong to forget that we are ourselves a part of Nature. We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe. Henri Matisse
• The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.  Blaise Pascal
• The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. Man can no longer live his life for himself alone. We realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all this life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship with the universe. Albert Schweitzer
• The further human society drifts away from nature, the less we understand interdependence. Peter Senge
• Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. Alan Watts
• When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. John Muir
• When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. John Muir
• Nature

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Interdependence is recognising how dependent we are on our planet…

• The land is sacred. These words are at the core of your being. The land is our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land away and we die. That is, the Indian in us dies. Brave Bird, Mary
• If all the beasts were gone, people would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the person. All things are connected.  Chief Seattle
• The planet is an organism. All of us are cells with different purposes. And yet we are intertwined. Serving each other. Serving the whole. Dan Brown
• We all drink from one water. We all breathe from one air. We rise from one ocean. And we live under one sky.  Anwar Fazal

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… recognising that what happens to the earth happens to its children

• You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.  Chief Seattle
• The indigenous understanding has its basis of spirituality in a recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living things, a holistic and balanced view of the world. All things are bound together. All things connect. What happens to the Earth happens to the children of the earth. Humankind has not woven the web of life; we are but one thread. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.  Rebecca Adamson
• The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events—that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies—and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends. Alan Watts

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• A spiritual sensibility encourages us to see ourselves as part of the fundamental unity of all being. If the thrust of the market ethos has been to foster a competitive individualism, a major thrust of many traditional religious and spiritual sensibilities has been to help us see our connection with all other human beings. Michael Lerner
• The indigenous understanding has its basis of spirituality in a recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living things, a holistic and balanced view of the world. All things are bound together. All things connect. Rebecca Adamson
• The human condition is that we are individuals in relationship, and there are tensions between individuality and relatedness. A humanist spirituality is not one of complete dependence, nor of complete independence —   neither condition can be defended as primary. Rather, a humanist spirituality is one of interdependence. Jone Johnson Lewis
• The spiritual path is not a solo endeavor. In fact, the very notion of a self who is trying to free her/himself is a delusion. We are in it together and the company of spiritual friends helps us realize our interconnectedness. Tara Brach
• At the deepest level of ecological awareness, you are talking about spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness is an understanding of being imbedded in a larger whole, a cosmic whole, of belonging to the universe. Fritjof Capra
• Spirituality

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Interdependence ought to be as much the ideal of man as self- sufficiency

• Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. Without interrelation with society he cannot realize his oneness with the universe or suppress his egotism. His social interdependence enables him to test his faith and to prove himself on the touchstone of reality. Mahatma Gandhi

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Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make

• Effective interdependence can only be built on a foundation of true independence. Stephen Covey
• Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make. Stephen Covey
• In the progress of personality, first comes a declaration of independence, then a recognition of interdependence. Henry Van Dyke
• Choice

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Contemplate the interdependence of all things and act accordingly

• Contemplation is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. Thomas Merton
• Life just seems so full of connections. Most of the time we don’t even pay attention to the depth of life.  We only see flat surfaces.  Colin Neenan

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Think win-win in all interactions and relationships

• Let’s face it. In most of life we really are interdependent. We need each other. Staunch independence is an illusion, but heavy dependence isn’t healthy, either. The only position of long-term strength is interdependence: win/win. Greg Anderson
• Think win-win

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Respect others and honour differences

• The task that remains is to cope with our interdependence – to see ourselves reflected in every other human being and to respect and honor our differences. Melba Pattillo Beals
• The greatest personalities that ever existed have been those who united human beings and put them on the road toward cooperation and effectiveness and peace. Those whom the world has held highest have helped to unite and not sever interconnectedness. They have not been the destroyers of differences but the harmonizer of differences. John Lovejoy Elliott
• Respect,  Diversity

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Connect deeply with yourself in order to connect deeply with others

• When people go within and connect with themselves, they realize they are connected to the universe and they are connected to all living things. Armand Dimele
• If one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• Connection

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Find opportunities to help each other

• The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-men; and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.  Walter Scott
• Help your brother’s boat across and your own will reach the shore. Proverb-Hindu
• Everyone needs help from everyone. Bertolt Brecht
• Ego’s trick is to make us lose sight of our interdependence. That kind of ego-thought gives us a perfect justification to look out only for ourselves. But that is far from the truth. In reality we all depend on each other and we have to help each other. Gehlek Rinpoche
• Helpfulness

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Combine your own efforts with the efforts of others

• Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own efforts. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success. Stephen Covey
• Interdependence is the paradigm of “we”—we can do it; we can combine our talents and abilities to create something greater together. Despite independence being the avowed goal of many people and social movements, interdependence is a far more effective and advanced concept. Stephen Covey
• One piece of log creates a small fire, adequate to warm you up, add just a few more pieces to blast an immense bonfire, large enough to warm up your entire circle of friends; needless to say that individuality counts but teamwork dynamites.  Jin Kwon
• Effort

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Recognise the interdependence of all thought and knowledge

• Consider how many people had to be involved for a particular thought to be formed. Every thought you have involves everyone you have ever known: your teachers, your siblings, your parents, your parents’ parents, your parents’ teachers, and on and on. Without this participation from the whole, the thought wouldn’t have come out the way it did. It wouldn’t have the ground from which to form. You wouldn’t even have the language to think with. Everything happens more out of a ‘we’ than a ‘me.’ Everything in the universe is involved with everything that happens. If everything in the universe participates in scratching your nose or having a thought or having a feeling, can you really call these experiences ‘yours?’   Nirmala
• Knowledge

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Let go of the ego and its illusion of separateness

• Ego’s trick is to make us lose sight of our interdependence. That kind of ego-thought gives us a perfect justification to look out only for ourselves. But that is far from the truth. In reality we all depend on each other and we have to help each other. Gehlek Rinpoche\
• Transcending the ego

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Ensure your influence on others is a positive one

All have their worth and each contributes to the worth of the others. J.R.R. Tolkien

• Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another. George Eliot
• None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another’s salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light. Dean Koontz
• The humblest individual exerts some influence, either for good or evil, upon others. Beecher, Henry Ward

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Help to create a global community of shared values and responsibilities

• Our mission in this new century is clear. For good or ill, we live in an interdependent world. We can’t escape each other. Therefore, we have to spend our lives building a global community of shared responsibilities, shared values, shared benefits. Bill Clinton

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See the world as a system of interrelated processes, causes and effects

• Today the network of relationships linking the human race to itself and to the rest of the biosphere is so complex that all aspects affect all others to an extraordinary degree. Someone should be studying the whole system, however crudely that has to be done, because no gluing together of partial studies of a complex nonlinear system can give a good idea of the behavior of the whole. Murray Gell-Mann
• The idea of interdependence is central to Buddhism, which holds that all things come into being through the mutual interactions of various causes and conditions.   Daisaku Ikeda
• Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static ‘snapshots.’ It is a set of general principles — distilled over the course of the twentieth century, spanning fields as diverse as the physical and social sciences, engineering, and management…. During the last thirty years, these tools have been applied to understand a wide range of corporate, urban, regional, economic, political, ecological, and even psychological systems. And systems thinking is a sensibility — for the subtle interconnectedness that gives living systems their unique character. Peter Senge
• We are seeking another basic outlook: the world as an organization. This would profoundly change the categories of our thinking and influence our practical attitudes.  We must envision the biosphere as a whole with mutually reinforcing or mutually destructive interdependencies.  Ludwig Von Bertalanffy

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Think about the consequences of any action

• The most important thing we can do … is to spend time thinking about the consequences of the choices we make. Jane Goodall
• Consequences

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Open yourself to honest dialogue with others

• The reality today is that we are all interdependent and have to co-exist on this small planet. Therefore, the only sensible and intelligent way of resolving differences and clashes of interests, whether between individuals or nations, is through dialogue. Tenzin Gyatso
• Communication

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Develop a greater sense of universal responsibility

• I believe that to meet the challenges of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for oneself, one’s own family or nation, but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace. Tenzin Gyatso

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Practice peace and non-violence

• Every living being is connected intimately, and from this intimacy follows the capacity of identification, and as its natural consequence, the practice of non-violence. Arne Naess
• Inner peace,  Violence

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See life as an opportunity to serve and love

• I have an interesting perspective on depending on others. I think it gives people a chance to serve. And I’m not so much big on independence, as I am on interdependence. I’m not talking about co-dependency, I’m talking about giving people the opportunity to practice love with its sleeves rolled up. Joni Eareckson Tada
• The planet is an organism. All of us are cells with different purposes. And yet we are intertwined. Serving each other. Serving the whole. Dan Brown
• Service,  Love

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Practice compassion

• The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another. Thomas Merton
• Compassion

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Do what’s right for the whole

• A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.  Aldo Leopold

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Realise that competition is no longer a valid paradigm

• One human being, one village, one city, or even one country can no longer live entirely on its own. Competitiveness – the desire to be the first, the best, the foremost, and only one – has simply become outdated as a “value.” This desire may have been useful in the past.  The concept of evolution describes a process from dependence toward independence, ultimately resulting in interdependence.  Frank Petter
• Competition

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Recognise that each person’s gifts and talents have a fitting place in the whole

• If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place. Margaret Mead

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• The interdependency of humankind, the relevance of relationship, the sacredness of creation is ancient, ancient wisdom. Rebecca Adamson
• In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever in and of itself. Chuck Klosterman
• Interdependence is a fact, it’s not an opinion. Peter Coyote
• Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone. Deborah Tannen
• We seek not rest but transformation. We are dancing through each other as doorways. Marge Piercy
• Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living. Anais Nin
• Because of the interconnectedness of all minds, affirming a positive vision may be about the most sophisticated action any one of us can take. Willis Harman
• You live in the age of interdependence. Borders don’t count for much or stop much, good or bad, anymore. Bill Clinton
• Even as people take pride in their national independence, we know we are becoming more and more interdependent. Bill Clinton
• As is the human body, so is the cosmic body. As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind. As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm. As is the atom, so is the universe. The Upanishads
• Every heart is the other heart. Every soul is the other soul. Every face is the other face. The individual is the one illusion. Marguerite  Young

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