Thirty Best Network Quotes
1) “We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it’s never a question of ‘critical mass.’ It’s always about critical connections.” – Grace Lee Boggs
2) “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.”– Henry Ford
3) “Values are the things that you need alignment around, everything else is fair game.” -Nathan Pai Schmitt
4) “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
5) “It really boils down to this: all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” – Martin Luther King Jr
6) “What you have to do, is you have to SHOW UP, walk the walk. You do those things you told them you were going to do.” -Stephani Salazar-Rodriguez
7) “Networking benefits people the most when they are helpful to each other. I say this: Helpfulness brings people into focus.” -Stanley R. Pokras
8) “We are the living conduit to all life. When we contemplate the vastness of the interwoven network that we are tied to, our individual threads of life seem far less fragile.” -Sherri Mitchell
9) “When everything is connected to everything else, for better or worse, everything matters.” -Bruce Mau
10) “By definition, a community is a collection of people (or animals) who interact with one another in the same environment. Community exists everywhere in nature. From people to penguins from monkeys to meerkats, the vast majority of organisms exhibit some form of collective grouping. Grouping, however, is a touch simplistic as a means to describe community. It is not merely the group that generates community, but the interactions within it. These interactions, and the feeling of belonging that they produce, are generated from a distinctive kind of economy: a social economy.” -Jono Bacon
11) “The real beginning of community is when its members have a common relation to the center overriding all other relations: the circle is described by the radii, not by the points along its circumference.” -Martin Buber
12) “When we draw more people into a collaborative relationship to responsibility and leadership, and help an individual step back from what amounts to overwork on our behalf, we open ourselves to a healthy and much needed conversation about what constitutes our common center.” -Rabbi Anne Heath
13) “Relation is reciprocity. My You acts on me as I act on it. Our students teach us, our works form us…. How we are educated by children, by animals! Inscrutably involved, we live in the currents of universal reciprocity.” -Martin Buber
14) “Successful communities will recognize the multiple entryways in which individuals develop connections to the larger community and work to foster relationships that deepen, strengthen, and cross those lines.” -Rabbi Anne Heath
15) “Networks are present everywhere. All we need is an eye for them.” -Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
16) “In nature everything works in collaboration. There are hummingbirds and flowers that are in such deep coordination they need each they for survival. How vibrant and alive and successful could our movement be if we moved with such coordination and collaboration.” -Karissa Lewis
17) “The most significant change at the beginning of this century has been the creation of platforms for cross-sector cooperation that enable change-makers to gather, become aware of, and understand the evolution of the whole system, and consequently to act, build and test prototypes that originate from that shared awareness. And the most important ingredient is always the same: a few fully committed people who would give everything to make it work.” -Otto Scharmer & Katrin Kaufer
18) “We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone… and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads form one to another that creates something.” -Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
19) “Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.” -Bertrand Russel
20) “Pull a thread here and you’ll find it’s attached to the rest of the world.” -Nadeem Aslam
21) “Our individual power to effect change may not seem like much, but remember, we are all interconnected: We are One. Powerlessness itself is an illusion. Every positive action we take, no matter how small, will have an impact.” -Laurence Overmire
22) “People are beginning to awaken to an idea we gave meaning to in the sixties: We are one people, one family, the human family, and what affects one of us affects us all.” -Rep. John Lewis
23) “Do we need people on the bus who are pushing back? Turns out that is the wrong question. It should be, What are the things that people should push back on, versus what things are destructive?” -Nathan Pai Schmitt
24) “It’s the people we hardly know, and not our closest friends, who will improve our lives most dramatically” -Meg Jay
25) “Organizations do not start expanding their network until they find themselves in need of. People rightly wonder about the sincerity of your intentions. By that time, the network should already be in place and have a solid basis of reciprocity and trust.” -Monica Bakker
26) “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” — Brene Brown
27) “Networking is not about just connecting people. It’s about connecting people with people, people with ideas, and people with opportunities.” — Michele Jennae
28) “Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.” — Steve Jobs
29) “The mark of a good conversationalist is not that you can talk a lot. The mark is that you can get others to talk a lot. Thus, good schmoozer’s are good listeners, not good talkers.” – Guy Kawasaki
30) “To be successful, you have to be able to relate to people; they have to be satisfied with your personality to be able to do business with you and to build a relationship with mutual trust.” – George Ross
About the Author: Alex Derr, M.P.A.
Director of Marketing & Communications
Alex joined VNL in 2017, originally supporting our events. He now helps manages our communications and marketing strategy and content development work. Alex creates blogs, infographics, reports, and other content while managing our web and social media presence. He also runs our email marketing campaigns, tracks analytics, and conducts market research to drive our strategy. He supports our entire team with copywriting, graphic design and research, and helps with events, webinars, demos, and other online learning. When he isn’t at work Alex spends his time climbing 14ers (30 done, 28 to go!) and blogging on his own website, The Next Summit Blog.
