APAD: No man is an island.

Humans are social animals. We need each other to survive. One cannot be entirely

self-reliant, a worthy ideal as it is.

 

Here's the 17th century poem where the proverb first appeared.

 

   No man is an island entire of itself; every man

   is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

   if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

   is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

   well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

   own were; 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.