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Eric Hoffer Quotes - Page 8

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 doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

Self Esteem, Humility, Vanity

Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.15, Harper Collins

Friendship Never explain -- your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe it anyway. A real friend never gets in your way, unless you happen to be on the way down. A friend is someone you can do nothing with and enjoy it. However much we guard ourselves against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us. 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.

Friends, Real, Believe

To the old, the new is usually bad news.

News, Novelty, Bad News

There is apparently no surer way of turning a thing into its opposite than by exaggerating it

Opposites, Society, Way

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

It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. ... Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor. In a Communist state love of neighbor may be classed as counter-revolutionary.

Eye, Doors, Humanity

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

Communists are frustrated capitalists.

Frustrated, Communism, Communist

Anger is a prelude to courage.

Positive, Prelude

Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another.

Humility, Pride, Substitution

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

What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored.

Attitude, Taken, Home

The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.

Wise, Long, Creative

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

The desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection- real or imagined- by them.

Real, People, Rejection

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

To find the cause of our ills in something outside ourselves, something specific that can be spotted and eliminated, is a diagnosis that cannot fail to appeal. To say that the cause of our troubles is not in us but in the Jews , and pass immediately to the extermination of the Jews, is a prescription likely to find a wide acceptance.

Acceptance, Diagnosis, Causes

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

The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.

Real, Wine, Ideas

"Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: 'Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely'" by Eric Hoffer, The New York Times Magazine (p. 60), April 25, 1971.

A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

Wall, Real, Self

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

Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.

Originality, Shows

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

Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.

Break Up, Heart, Winning

It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate.

Hope, People, Opiates

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

All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance.

Powerful, Hatred, Society

Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create something in the image of nature is to create a machine, and it was by learning the inner working of nature that man became a builder of machines.

Nature, Men, Self

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

Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense, and sublime truths are equally potent in readying people for self-sacrifice if they are accepted as the sole, eternal truth

Truth, Sacrifice, Self

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

Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals; yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.

Art, Technology, Organization

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

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Wisdom, Lying, Lied

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

Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. We join a mass movement to escape from individual responsibility, or, in the words of an ardent young Nazi, to be free from freedom. It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?

Responsibility, Men, Order

"The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements". Book by Eric Hoffer. Section 26, 1951.

When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it.

Modernism, Modernity, Industry

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

There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.

Life, Political, Understanding

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