The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.
Interpretation
Our ability to coexist peacefully with others is rooted in our self-acceptance and tolerance of our own flaws.
This quote by Eric Hoffer emphasizes the importance of self-acceptance in fostering harmonious relationships with others. It suggests that to effectively get along with our neighbors, we must first cultivate a sense of acceptance towards ourselves, including our own imperfections. Only by being tolerant of our own shortcomings can we extend that same understanding and compassion to those around us, leading to healthier and more respectful interactions.
In practice
Using this quote during a community meeting to promote understanding and tolerance among neighbors.
Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family-what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated?
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about.
Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
All religions begin with the cry Help.
I see in the rising crescendo of ethnic tensions, civilization clashes and the use of religious justification for acts of terror, a clear and present danger to humanity.
In every good man a God doth dwell.
Man's right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word "freedom" should ever be more than an empty political slogan.
I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.
Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development.
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