Kenneth Boulding (1942) "The Practice of The Love of God", William Penn Lecture, delivered at Arch Street Meetinghouse, Philadelphia, 1942. In: Friends' Intelligencer, Vol. 99 p. 231-261
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We are not sent into this world to walk it in solitude. We are born to love, as we are born to breathe and eat and drink. The babe is hardly separated from his mother’s womb before he stretches out a tiny clasping hand, and from that time forth he will constantly stretch out to touch the world that lies about him and the folk that dwell therein. The purpose of our growth in life is to bring us into unity with the universe into which we are born, to make us aware that we are not lonely individual meteors hurtling blindly through an abysmal dark, but living parts of a living whole. As we grow we learn to love more and more: first ourselves; then the family within the small kingdom of the home; then the school, the wider circle of friends, the home community, the college, and the still wider community of the nation; and finally, the greatest country of all, which has no boundaries this side of Hell, and perhaps not even there.

— Kenneth Boulding

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "We are not sent into this world to walk it in solitude. We are born to love, as we are born to breathe and eat and drink. The babe is hardly separated from his mother’s womb before he stretches out a tiny clasping hand, and from that time forth he will constantly stretch out to touch the world that lies about him and the folk that dwell therein. The purpose of our growth in life is to bring us into unity with the universe into which we are born, to make us aware that we are not lonely individual meteors hurtling blindly through an abysmal dark, but living parts of a living whole. As we grow we learn to love more and more: first ourselves; then the family within the small kingdom of the home; then the school, the wider circle of friends, the home community, the college, and the still wider community of the nation; and finally, the greatest country of all, which has no boundaries this side of Hell, and perhaps not even there." in the context of "Kenneth Boulding (1942) "The Practice of The Love of God", William Penn Lecture, delivered at Arch Street Meetinghouse, Philadelphia, 1942. In: Friends' Intelligencer, Vol. 99 p. 231-261" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Kenneth Boulding" (Quotes, 1940s) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Kenneth Boulding

About Kenneth Boulding

Kenneth Ewart Boulding (18 January 1910 – 18 March 1993) was an economist, educator, poet, religious mystic, devoted Quaker, systems scientist and interdisciplinary philosopher. He was cofounder of General Systems Theory and founder of numerous ongoing intellectual projects in economics and social science. He was married to Elise M. Boulding.