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Eric Hoffer Quotes - Page 7

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

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

Religious, Atheist, Opposites

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

We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it.

Needs, Want, Few Words

The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.

Fear, Real, Vanity

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

The ignorant are a reservoir of daring. It almost seems that those who have yet to discover the known are particularly equipped for dealing with the unknown. The unlearned have often rushed in where the learned feared to tread, and it is the credulous who are tempted to attempt the impossible. They know not whither they are going, and give chance a chance.

Giving, Ignorant, Atheism

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

Language was invented to ask questions.

Humanness Is, Language, Asks

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

God alone is satisfied with what He is and can proclaim: "I am what I am." Unlike God, man strives with all his might to be what he is not. He incessantly proclaims: "I am what I am not.

Men, Might, Strive

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

No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are.

Motivational, Book, Thinking

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Sarcastic, Freedom, Sarcasm

Passionate State of Mind (1955) p. 21

Take man's most fantastic invention- God. Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it.

Men, Overcoming, Want

It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.

Hate, Native American, Immigration

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

How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.

Death, Dying, World

"Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: 'Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely". The New York Times Magazine, p. 62, April 25, 1971.

The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.

Mother, Children, Sadness

Nothing comes easily. My work smells of sweat.

Writing, Sweat, Smell

In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.

Life, Motivational, Change

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

It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites-opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity-where energies flow smoothly in one direction-there will be much doing but no music.

Music, Loyalty, One Direction

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

By all odds, earliest man, so naked to the elements and to deadly enemies, should have existed in a state of constant shock. We find him instead the only lighthearted being in a deadly serious universe.... He alone, with childish carelessness, tinkered and played, and exerted himself more in the pursuit of superfluities than of necessities. Yet the tinkering and playing, and the fascination with the nonessential, were a chief source of the inventiveness which enabled man to prevail over better-equipped and more-purposeful animals.

Animal, Men, Odds

The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas.

Philosophy, Writing, Play

Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.

Death, Dying, Tomorrow

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

We are made kind by being kind.

Kindness, Be Kind, Kind

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

It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

Kindness, Kind Deeds, Judging

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

Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence.

Strong, Struggle, Rest Of Life

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

It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.

Self, Doubt, Poison

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

I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.

Mind, Prejudice, Literature

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

Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.

Dog, Horse, Cat

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

We often use strong language not to express a powerful emotion but to evoke it in us.

Strong, Powerful, Use

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

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