Authors:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Eric Hoffer Quotes - Page 15

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

There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment.

There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment.

Men, Doubt, Ruthlessness

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

Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.

Freedom, Energy, Mass

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

One might equate growing up with a mistrust of words. A mature person trusts his eyes more than his ears. Irrationality often manifests itself in upholding the word against the evidence of the eyes. Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard.

Children, Growing Up, Eye

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

It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have "something worth fighting for,they do not feel like fighting.

Fighting, Men, Society

ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

It needs some intelligence to be truly selfish. The unintelligent can only be self-righteous.

Selfish, Needs, Self Righteous

That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them.

Agreement, Soul, Prejudice

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

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.

Art, Children, Fun

"Reflections on the Human Condition". Book by Eric Hoffer, 1973.

The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and function without him. This is true not only of the writer, artist and scientist, but of creators in other fields.With the noncreative it is the other way around: in whatever they do, they arrange things so that they themselves become indispensable.

Artist, Way, Fields

Totalitarianism spells simplification: an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power.

Type, Reduction, Categories

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

Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.

Success, Children, Growing Up

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

Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story - a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.

Men, Patterns, Causes

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

Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay.

Power, Men, Clay

It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world.

Our World, Self, Roots

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

To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.

Respect, Freedom, Mean

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

One word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made perservereingly during fifty-five years; that word is failure

Failure, Years, Effort

Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.

Equality, Atmosphere, Liberty

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

Nothing so offends the doctrinaire intellectual as our ability to achieve the momentous in a matter-of-fact way, unblessed by words.

Intellectual, Matter, Way

The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.

Desire, Satisfaction, Greater

ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.

Love, Peace, Malcontent

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

It is a strange thing that both the injurer and the injured, the sinner and he who is sinned against, should find in the mass movement an escape from a blemished life.

Movement, Strange, Should

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

...That genius is a rare exception (:) It's not true. Talent and genius have been wasted on enormous scale throughout our history; this is all I know for sure.

Dark, Age, Genius

We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.

Mind, Body, Reverence

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

people with a sense of fulfillment think it is a good world and would like to conserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change.

Thinking, People, Frustrated

Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.6, Harper Collins

You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone.

Conformity, Clique, Nonconformist

"Reflections on the Human Condition" by Eric Hoffer, (Section 50), 1973.

The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.

Greek, Logic, Fooled

Eric Hoffer (1979). “Before the Sabbath”, Harpercollins

You May Also Like: