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Eric Hoffer

172 quotes

“To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fear of becoming a "has been" keeps some people from becoming anything.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We usually see only the things we are looking for — so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past. (1954), p. 75”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own... Whether it our own meaningless self we are upholding, or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The beginning of thought is in disagreement — not only with others but also with ourselves.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From The Passionate State of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955), p. 260 ; as cited in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, ed. Robert Andrews, Columbia University Press (1993), p. 741
“We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not only are oppression and exploitation an old story in Asia, but the colonial regimes of the British in lndia and of the Dutch in lndonesia were fairly beneficent—more so perhaps than any regime those countries ever had or are likely to have for some time. I am convinced that were the Western colonial powers a hundred times more beneficent, and had they been animated from very beginning by the purest philanthropic motives, their impact on the Orient would still have had the fateful consequences we are witnessing at present.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is in even the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that what we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-renunciation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser and their like are not far behind the selfless in the exercise of self-sacrifice.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If in order to keep the wheels turning you have to deafen ears with propaganda, crack the whip of Terror, and keep pushing people around, then you haven't got a machine civilization no matter how numerous and ingenious your machines.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There can be no freedom without freedom to fail.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing is so unsettling to a social order as the presence of a mass of scribes without suitable employment and an acknowledged status.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ratio between supervisory and producing personnel is always highest where the intellectuals are in power. In a Communist country it takes half the population to supervise the other half.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One would like to see mankind spend the balance of the century in a total effort to clean up and groom the surface of the globe — wipe out the jungles, turn deserts and swamps into arable land, terrace barren mountains, regulate rivers, eradicate all pests, control the weather, and make the whole land mass a fit habitation for Man. The globe should be our and not nature's home, and we no longer nature's guests.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others — that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (30 October 1958, 6:30 am)
“A just society must strive with all its might to right wrongs even if righting wrongs is a highly perilous undertaking. But if it is to survive, a just society must be strong and resolute enough to deal swiftly and relentlessly with those who would mistake its good will for weakness.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When cowardice becomes a fashion its adherents are without number, and it masquerades as forbearance, reasonableness and whatnot.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The elites are finally catching up with us. We can hear the swish of leather as saddles are heaved on our backs. The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets. There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience; a readiness to attempt the impossible; a bias for simple solutions — to cut the knot rather than unravel it; the viewing of compromise as surrender; the tendency to manipulate people and "experiment with blood." Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The central task of education is to implant a will and a facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together. In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat; that they are chosen when they are shunned.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We take for granted the need to escape the self. Yet the self can also be a refuge. In totalitarian countries the great hunger is for private life. Absorption in the minutiae of an individual existence is the only refuge from the apocalyptic madhouse staged by maniacal saviors of humanity.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive — it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ignorant are a reservoir of daring. It almost seems that those who have yet to discover the known are particularly equipped for dealing with the unknown. The unlearned have often rushed in where the learned feared to tread, and it is the credulous who are tempted to attempt the impossible. They know not whither they are going, and give chance a chance.”
Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source