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Eric Hoffer Quotes - Page 12

All Quotes Acceptance Achievement Age Ambition Anxiety Art Atheism Atheist Attitude Awareness Balance Belief Business Change Character Children Communism Compassion Conformity Conservatism Country Creativity Death Deception Dedication Desire Destiny Devil Diversity Doubt Dying Education Effort Energy Environment Envy Equality Evil Excellence Experience Failure Faith Fashion Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Freedom Frustration Future Generosity Giving Glory Growing Up Growth Happiness Hate Hatred Heart History Home Hope Humanity Humility Hunger Ignorance Impulse Independence Individuality Inspirational Integrity Judging Justice Kindness Knowledge Language Laughter Leadership Learning Liberty Life Literature Loneliness Love Loyalty Lying Manifestation Motivational Nature Opportunity Originality Overcoming Passion Past Philosophy Power Prejudice Pride Propaganda Prophet Protest Purpose Quality Reality Reflection Rejection Religion Resentment Respect Responsibility Righteousness Running Sacrifice Sadness Self Confidence Self Esteem Self Respect Sin Society Soul Spring Success Suffering Talent Teaching Technology Time Tolerance Truth Unity Vision Water Weakness Winning Wisdom Work Writing Youth

How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization!

How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization!

Sacrifice, Self, Realization

"Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: 'Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely'" by Eric Hoffer in The New York Times Magazine (p. 60), April 25, 1971.

The readiness to praise others indicates a desire for excellence and perhaps an ability to realize it.

Excellence, Desire, Realizing

Eric Hoffer (1955). “The passionate state of mind, and other aphorisms”

Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.

Respect, Humility, Pride

Eric Hoffer (1955). “The passionate state of mind, and other aphorisms”

There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves.

Thinking, Deceiving, Scruples

Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.

Leader, Vigor, Social

Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole the church, party, nation and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society .

Loyalty, Party, Faithful

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

There is no reason to believe that the nature of the violent minorities is now greatly different from what it was in the past. What has changed is the will and ability of the majority to react.

Believe, Past, Majority

Eric Hoffer (1977). “In our time”, McNally & Loftin Publishers

The nineteenth century planted the words which the twentieth century ripened into the atrocities of Stalin and Hitler. There is hardly an atrocity committed in the twentieth century that was not foreshadowed or even advocated by some noble man of words in the nineteenth.

Men, Noble Man, Atrocities Committed

How rare it is to come across a piece of writing that is unambiguous, unqualified, and also unblurred by understatements or subtleties, and yet at the same time urbane and tolerant. It is a vice of the scientific method when applied to human affairs that it fosters hemming and hawing and a scrupulousness that easily degenerates into obscurity and meaninglessness.

Writing, Vices, Obscurity

"Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

Future, Adversity, Past

Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

A sublime religion inevitably generates a strong feeling of guilt. There is an unavoidable contrast between loftiness of profession and imperfection of practice. And, as one would expect, the feeling of guilt promotes hate and brazenness. Thus it seems that the more sublime the faith the more virulent the hatred it breeds.

Strong, Hate, Practice

ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

Words have ruined more souls than any devil's agency.

Agency, Soul, Devil

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

...the differences between the conservative and the radical seem to spring mainly from their attitude toward the future. Fear of the future causes us to lean against and cling to the present, while faith in the future renders us receptive to change.

Attitude, Spring, Differences

Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.9, Harper Collins

Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.

Doctors, Society, Disease

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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.

Acceptance, Self, Sin

Eric Hoffer (1969). “Working and Thinking on the Waterfront: A Journal, June 1958-May 1959”

What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine: it must be "contrary to nature, to common sense and to pleasure.

Common Sense, Doctrine, Pascal

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

A man by himself is in bad company.

Men, Solitude, Bad Company

Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us as rivals and trespassers. But we always look for allies when we hate.

Love, Hate, Allies

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.

Passion, Shrinking, Literature

Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

Those of little faith are of little hatred.

Hatred, Religion, Littles

Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

I always held my flower in a clenched fist.

Flower, Fists

There is a time when the word "eventually" has the soothing effect of a promise, and a time when the word evokes in us bitterness and scorn.

Promise, Bitterness, Evoke

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.

Failure, Responsibility, Weak

Eric Hoffer (1963). “The Ordeal of Change”

Even in slight things the experience of the new is rarely without some stirring of foreboding.

Experience, Stirring, Foreboding

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

There is a radicalism in all getting, and a conservatism in all keeping. Lovemaking is radical, while marriage is conservative.

Marriage, Radicalism, Conservative

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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