The Companions (The Sundering, #1, The Legend of Drizzt, #27)

by R.A. Salvatore

We are in constant struggle, the self and the community, where in our hearts we need to decide where one line ends and another begins. For some, this is a matter of religion, the unquestioned edicts of a professed god or gods, but for most, I would hope, it is a realization of the basic truth that the community, the society, is a needed component in the preservation of the self, both materially and spiritually.

And that is the point of community: common need and common good, the strength of numbers, the tenderness of a helping hand, the ability to work as one to attain greater heights for all, the widening of horizons beyond one’s own perspective and one’s own family, the enrichment of life itself.

How long lived our memory of you when you are gone? Because in the end, that is the only measure. In the end, when life’s last flickers fade, all that remains is memory. Richness, in the final measure, is not weighed in gold coins, but in the number of people you have touched, the tears of those who mourn your passing, and the fond remembrances of those who continue to celebrate your life.