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Eric Hoffer Quotes - Page 6

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

Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.

Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.

Society, Quality, Improvement

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

You cannot gauge the intelligence of an American by talking with him; you must work with him. The American polishes and refines his way of doing things-even the most commonplace-the way the French of the 17th century polished their maxims.

Talking, America, Gauges

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

Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.

Real, Passion, Equality

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.

Men, Compassion, Justice

Eric Hoffer, "The Passionate Sate of Mind and Other Aphorisms" (1955), section 140

There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.

Loneliness, Failure, Being Alone

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

Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.

Writing, Ideas, Sickness

Letter to Mrs. Blumberg, September 27, 1977.

Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own. Whether it is our own meaningless self we are upholding, or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith.

Self, Expression, Support

"The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms". Book by Eric Hoffer, 1955.

The vigor of a mass movement stems from the propensity of its followers for united action and self-sacrifice. When we ascribe the success of a movement to its faith, doctrine, propaganda, leadership, ruthlessness and so on, we are but referring to instruments of unification and to means used to inculcate a readiness for self-sacrifice. It is perhaps impossible to understand the nature of a mass movement unless it is recognized that their chief preoccupation is to foster, perfect and perpetuate a facility for united action and self-sacrifice.

Mean, Sacrifice, Self

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.

Hate, Enemy, Easier

ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. It not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give their allegiance to him who offers them a grievance.

Giving, Purpose, Hunger

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

The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money. The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been a passage from considerations of money to considerations of power.

Communism, Crime, Consideration

No totalitarian censor can approach the implacability of the censor who controls the line of communication between the outer world and our consciousness. Nothing is allowed to reach us which might weaken our confidence and lower our morale. To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth.

Communication, World, Lines

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

Rudeness is the weak man's limitation of strength.

Men, Weak Man, Rudeness

"The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms". Book by Eric Hoffer, Section 241, 1955.

The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.

Students, Trouble, University

Woe to him inside a non-conformist clique who does not conform to non-conformity.

Character, Doe, Woe

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.

Strong, Mistake, Weakness

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

Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.

Life, Wise, Wisdom

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

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.

Compassion, Evil, Literature

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

Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.

Trust, Cheating, Philosophy

Rudeness luxuriates in the absence of self-respect.

Self, Self Respect, Rudeness

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

The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.

Sick, Soul, Humanity

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

The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.

Dissent, Disagreement

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

We know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude; and men are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and beget action; they kill and revive, corrupt and cure. The "men-of-words"- priests, prophets, intellectuals- have played a more decisive role in history than military leaders, statesmen, and businessmen.

Military, Moving, Fighting

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

The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.

Respect, Self, Trying

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

Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.

God, Stars, Airplane

www.nytimes.com. July 21, 1969.

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