Alfred Adler Quotes

The problem isn't to learn to love humanity, but to learn to love those members of it who happen to be at hand.

Unless we give part of ourselves away, unless we can live with other people and understand them and help them, we are missing the most essential part of our own human lives.

If we had no regard for others' feelings or fortune, we would grow cold and indifferent to life itself.

But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people--first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.

All failures are so because they lack social interest.

The moment man cuts himself off from living connection with the human race and its needs, he begins to die from poor circulation.

I think the main thing is to find something you care about. A cause. I think it starts with others. Who do you look up to? Who do you want to help? Start in your own community.

Altruism is one of the most fundamentally social impulses, and doing things for others without expecting anything in return is core to what makes us human. This is why, from the day Facebook Platform launched in 2007, Causes has been honored to be one of the most popular applications, with over 140 million users.

What makes the meaning of life is people, so you try to be good to people immediately around you and in your broader community. So a lot of my projects are about how I can affect the world in the hundreds of millions.

Those who believe in the importance of serving others should lead the way by fighting against the temptation we all have, and maybe especially as we age, to close in upon ourselves.

I think, really, that the only way a person can open their heart to someone who is so much another is really by knowing them... whether that's in a classroom, or a soccer team, or a food pantry, or any of those things. I mean, we're kind of more alike than we are different.

The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.

Each time we enter imaginatively into the life of another, it's a small step upwards in the elevation of the human race.

It's interesting that one of the definitions of the word 'human' is 'sympathetic.' More and more people are beginning to show that they understand why that is important.

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.

In my mind, as long as I did what was right for me, I was cool. But that's not the way it works. You have to think about other people and take their feelings into account.

People who volunteer at the recycling center or soup kitchen through a church or neighborhood group can come to feel part of something 'larger.' Such a sense of belonging calls on a different part of a self than the market calls on. The market calls on our sense of self-interest. It focuses us on what we 'get.'

Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. For remember, you don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.

Every child should be taught to be a caring adult and be given an opportunity to serve their communities.

People must help one another. It is nature's law.

Love people, not things; use things, not people.

Trying to learn to be a good man is like learning to play tennis against a wall. You are only a good man - a competent, capable, interesting and lovable man - when you're doing it for, or with, other people.

The more empathy you have and the more connected you are to society, the better off you'll be.

Once kids begin to realize that they are connected to a greater good and greater whole, then that will lessen the possibility that they will act out violently because it creates empathy.

One of the illusions that we live by is that we can really know anybody else, and we're often surprised by traits in people that we thought we knew very well. The struggle to overcome loneliness, which is sort of our universal burden, leads us to leap to conclusions about who other people are.