Helmut Schoeck Quotes

• The envious man thinks that if his neighbor breaks a leg, he will be able to walk better himself

  Helmut Schoeck

  Men, Thinking, Break A Leg

  48 Copy quote

• To claim "humanitarian motives" when the motive is envy and its supposed appeasement, is a favorite rhetorical device of politicians today, and has been for at least a hundred and fifty years.

  Helmut Schoeck

  Years, Envy, Atheism

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• We envy those whose possessions or achievements are a reflection on our own. They are our neighbors and equals. It is they, above all who make plain the nature of our failure.

  Helmut Schoeck

  Reflection, Envy, Achievement

  9 Copy quote

• Overwhelming and astounding inequality,especially when it has an element of the unattainable, arouses far less envy than minimal inequality, which inevitably causes the envious to think: I might have been in his place.

  Helmut Schoeck

  Thinking, Envy, Causes

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• The more kindness shown to an envious man, the worse he becomes.

  Helmut Schoeck

  Kindness, Men, Envious

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• Christianity provided man for the first time with supernatural beings who, he knew, could neither envy nor ridicule him.

  Helmut Schoeck

  Men, Supernatural Beings, Envy

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• Man's envy is at its most intense where all are almost equal; his calls for redistribution are loudest when there is virtually nothing to redistribute.

  Helmut Schoeck

  Men, Envy, Intense

  4 Copy quote

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