Quote

Help your sister's boat across the water, and yours too will reach the other side. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

Eric Hoffer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Eric Hoffer
Age: 84 †
Born: 1898
Born: July 25
Died: 1983
Died: May 21
Philosopher
Psychologist
Writer
New York City
New York
Side
Volunteer
Sides
Motive
Help
Sister
Water
Boat
Helping
Kindness
Become
Across
Made
Kind
Reach

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
Eric Hoffer
Image
People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
Eric Hoffer
Image
There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Successful action tends to become an end in itself.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money. The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been a passage from considerations of money to considerations of power.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.
Eric Hoffer
Image
What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
Eric Hoffer
Image
EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.
Eric Hoffer