No man is an island, entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less …
Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

ENGLISH poet John Donne, persecuted for being a Catholic, forbidden in England at that time, wrote in 1624 about the connectedness of all human beings, in life and in death, in sickness and in health, in kindness and in cruelty, criminal and victim.

None of us is so big, so detached, so self-sufficient, that we need no othe