To this end I suggest we need to look to an idea deeply rooted in Christian life and thought. The idea of the Common Good. The Common Good is concerned with personal and mutual flourishing in terms of our talents and vocations. It is about treating people as they really are: as human beings who belong to families, localities and communities. To shared traditions, interests and faiths. Not as abstracted, rootless, atomised individuals that dominates neo-classical or neoliberal thinking -the thinking that dominates our life.

When the common good of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of some men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals.

The common good before the individual good. (Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz)

The desire to serve the common good must without fail be a requisite of the soul, a necessity for personal happiness; if it issues not from there, but from theoretical or other considerations, it is not at all the same thing.

The liberty of the individual to do as he pleases, even in innocent matters, is not absolute. It must frequently yield to the common good.

Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.

Think of a more humane economic model in the context of social justice, charity, and integral development. It's time to think about the "common good."

Everyone has to contribute to the common good. To not do so can be described in one word: selfish.

Is an alleged ‘common good’ intended to convey the idea of a universal good, one that is applicable to everyone? If so, the only value I have found to which all persons would seem to subscribe, is this: no one wants to be victimized. I have yet to find an individual to which this proposition would not apply. No one chooses to have his or her person or other property interests trespassed upon by another. The failure to recognize both this fact and the fact that all of our values are subjective in nature, has given rise to the silly notion of altruism, the idea that one could choose to act contrary to his or her perceived interests.

Have I done something for the common good? Then I share in its benefits.

The efforts of all common humanity are directed to one end — to make existence less difficult. To this end those rules of conduct that pass for morality also tend.

Life is short—the fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good.

May the Lord God help us to work together for the common good of all the people of God that we all serve. For God and my country.

According to [Peter L.] Callero, ‘Freedom of choice and self-determination are virtuous principles, but when selfish individual interests threaten to destroy the common good, the limits of individualism are exposed.’ Unfortunately but predictably, Callero is vague when it comes to defining ‘the common good’—a catchphrase with many variations that has been used by murderous dictators throughout history. May we therefore say that the ‘common good,’ when pushed to extremes, results in the likes of Stalin and Hitler?