No Man Is an Island

I love this prose by John Donne, and it seems so à propos now, with the healthcare debates, people confusing socialism with communism, and so forth. What kind of people do we want to be? What kind of nation do we want to be? Does community still have its place?

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated... As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness... No man is an island, entire of itself... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

~ John Donne (1572-1631)
From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, 1623, Meditation XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris (Now this bell, tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die)

For the complete passage, see http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Meditation_XVII.
Public domain photo from Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons.
(And not a bad-looking chap at that, eh?)