Every society rests in the last resort on the recognition of common principles and common ideals, and if it makes no moral or spiritual appeal to the loyalty of its members, it must inevitably fall to pieces.
Interpretation
Society depends on shared values and ideals for cohesion; without them, it will fail.
This quote by Christopher Dawson emphasizes the importance of shared moral and spiritual principles within a society. It argues that for a society to remain intact and functional, its members must be united by common beliefs and ideals; when these connections weaken, the society risks disintegration and chaos.
In practice
During a community meeting discussing local challenges, one might cite this quote to emphasize the importance of shared values.
We have entered a new phase of culture - we may call it the Age of the Cinema - in which the most amazing perfection of scientific technique is being devoted to purely ephemeral objects, without any consideration of their ultimate justification. It seems as though a new society was arising which will acknowledge no hierarchy of values, no intellectual authority, and no social or religious tradition, but which will live for the moment in a chaos of pure sensation.
It is true that Christianity is not bound up with any particular race or culture. It is neither of the East or of the West, but has a universal mission to the human race as a whole
You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing.
I obviously don't feel under pressure to look young, because I have had no Botox or surgery. I don't judge people who choose to have it, but I don't want to erase who I am.
The utterly fallacious idea at the heart of the pro-war argument is that it is the duty of the anti-war argument to provide an alternative to war. The onus is on them to explain just cause.
Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity -- an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.
There is no doubt that we cannot do without variable quantities in the sense of the potential infinite. But from this very fact the necessity of the actual infinite can be demonstrated.
It all goes back and back," Tyrion thought, "to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance in our steads.
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