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Eric Hoffer Quotes - Page 20

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

A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific.

A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific.

Men, Soul, Flow

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

The superficiality of many is a result of deep fears. It takes spare time to think things out; it takes free time to mature. People in a hurry may not think well or mature well. The next best is a state of perpetual puerility.

Thinking, People, May

There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.

Cutting, People, Size

Action is basically a reaction against loss of balance - a flailing of the arms to to regain one's balance. To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium.

Loss, Upset, Soul

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

We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true; they ruin our dreams.

Love, Dream, Hope

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

Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.

Balance, Arms, Action

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

The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.

People, Society, Technique

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

It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words.

Eye, Reflection, Echoes

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

In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.

Passionate, Pursuit, Objects

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

It is startling to see how the oppressed almost invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors.

Shapes, Hated, Oppressed

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

Imitation is often a shortcut to a solution. We copy when we lack the inclination, the ability or the time to work out an independent solution. People in a hurry will imitate more readily than people at leisure. Hustling thus tends to produce uniformity. And in the deliberate fusing of individuals into a compact group, incessant action will play a considerable role.

Independent, Play, People

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

Effort, Individuality, Literature

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

Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.

Children, Men, Suffering

When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.

Loyalty, Dedication, Self

Eric Hoffer (1951). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, New York : Harper

The truth seems to be that propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new; nor can it keep people persuaded once they have ceased to believe. It penetrates into minds already open, and rather than instill opinion it articulates and justifies opinions already present in the minds of its recipients.

Believe, People, Mind

"The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements". Book by Eric Hoffer, 1951.

The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.

Desire, Oneself, Loses

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

Radicalism itself ceases to be radical when absorbed mainly in preserving its control over a society or an economy.

Radicalism, Economy, Radical

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

When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed.

Dream, Lying, Wrath

Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.11, Harper Collins

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.

Men, Mind, Snooping

Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.14, Harper Collins

However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable.

Life, Believe, Eye

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

It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both in the market place and on the battlefield men who set their hearts on toys have often displayed unequal initiative and drive. And one must be ignorant of the creative process to look for a close correspondence between motive and achievement in the world of thought and imagination.

Heart, Men, Imagination

The weak are not a noble breed. Their sublime deeds of faith, daring, and self-sacrifice usually spring from questionable motives. The weak hate not wickedness but weakness; and one instance of their hatred of weakness is hatred of self. All the passionate pursuits of the weak are in some degree a striving to escape, blur, or disguise an unwanted self. It is a striving shot through with malice, envy, self-deception, and a host of petty impulses; yet it often culminates in superb achievements.

Hate, Spring, Sacrifice

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

Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.

Life, Book, Learning

There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.

Littles, Cures, Alienation

To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain enormously in confidence before he could conceive an all-powerful God who obeys his own laws.

Powerful, Men, Law

"Reflections on the Human Condition". Book by Eric Hoffer, Section 163, 1973.

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