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Eric Hoffer Quotes - Page 3

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

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.

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.

Doe, Woe, Conformity

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

Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults.

Taken, Adults, Calamity

The education explosion is producing a vast number of people who want to live significant, important lives but lack the ability to satisfy this craving for importance by individual achievement. The country is being swamped with nobodies who want to be somebodies.

Country, Numbers, People

The greatest weariness comes from work not done.

Work, Energy, Done

The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.

Play, Ideas, Quality

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

The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. In an affluent society, the alienated who clamor for power are largely untalented people who cannot make use of the unprecedented opportunities for self-realization, and cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self.

Opportunity, Self, People

It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.

Fear, Power, Terrorism

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

The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.

Mean, Self, Land

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

To change everything, simply change your attitude.

Attitude, Change Your Attitude

Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.

Men, Age, Answers

The central task of education is to implant a will and 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.

Wisdom, Children, Knowledge

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

It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the by-product of a stalemate between opposite vices.

Opposites, Vices, Virtue

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

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.

Country, America, People

"Reflections on the Human Condition". Book by Eric Hoffer, Section 53, 1973.

Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.

Truth, Honesty, Add

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

We cannot hate those who we despise.

Hate, Despise

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.

Trust, Beauty, Math

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

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

Teacher, Time, Children

"Reflections on the Human Condition". Book by Eric Hoffer. Section 33, 1973.

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.

Hater, Nature, Angel

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

Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.

Hate, Way, Lost

ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

Inspirational, Life, Motivational

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

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

Freedom, Tests

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

If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.

Everyday, Degrees, Taste

One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.

Wisdom, Differences, Adults

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.

Humor, Deep Thought, Movement

"The Temper of Our Time". Book by Eric Hoffer, 1967.

The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.

Believe, Evil, Doubt

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

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