Eric Hoffer Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Eric Hoffer

Eric Hoffer Quotes & Sayings

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We see through others only when we see through ourselves. — Eric Hoffer

Most often in history it was the conquerors who learned willingly from the conquered. — Eric Hoffer

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless. — Eric Hoffer

The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate. — Eric Hoffer

Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity. — Eric Hoffer

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. — Eric Hoffer

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

The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers. — Eric Hoffer

Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading. — Eric Hoffer

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings. — Eric Hoffer

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. — Eric Hoffer

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

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past. — Eric Hoffer

Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt. — Eric Hoffer

It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings. — Eric Hoffer

The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle. — Eric Hoffer

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

No one has a right to happiness. — Eric Hoffer

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

Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless. — Eric Hoffer

What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds. — Eric Hoffer

Some people have no original ideas because they do not think well enough of themselves to consider their ideas worth noticing and developing. — Eric Hoffer

Those of little faith are of little hatred. — Eric Hoffer

The unpredictability inherent in human affairs is due largely to the fact that the by-products of a human process are more fateful than the product. — Eric Hoffer

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

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. — Eric Hoffer

Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have. — Eric Hoffer

There is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice. — Eric Hoffer

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

Though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. — Eric Hoffer

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

There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive. — Eric Hoffer

Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible. — Eric Hoffer

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

Children are the keys of paradise. — Eric Hoffer

It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression. — Eric Hoffer

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

The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness. — Eric Hoffer

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

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

Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play. — Eric Hoffer

A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority. — Eric Hoffer

It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. — Eric Hoffer

A plant needs roots in order to grow. With man it is the other way around: only when he grows does he have roots and feels at home in the world. — Eric Hoffer

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

We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails. — Eric Hoffer

We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the remarkable fact that many inventions had their birth as toys. — Eric Hoffer

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves. — Eric Hoffer

We cannot hate those who we despise. — Eric Hoffer

When cowardice becomes a fashion its adherents are without number, and it masquerades as forbearance, reasonableness and whatnot. — Eric Hoffer

Good writing , like gold , combines lustrous lucidity with high density. What this means is good writing is packed with hints. — Eric Hoffer

Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake. — Eric Hoffer

No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart. — Eric Hoffer

The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others. — Eric Hoffer

He who has nothing and wants something is less frustrated than he who has something and wants more. — Eric Hoffer

The Renaissance was a time of mercenary soldiers, ours is a time of mercenary labor. — Eric Hoffer

It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have something worth fighting for,they do not feel like fighting. — Eric Hoffer

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

We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion. — Eric Hoffer

There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members. — Eric Hoffer

Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem. — Eric Hoffer

Animals often strike us as passionate machines. — Eric Hoffer

Those who feel guilty are afraid; and those who are afraid somehow feel guilty. To the onlooker, too, the fearful seem guilty. — Eric Hoffer

Man's chief goal in life is still to become and stay human, and defend his achievements against the encroachment of nature. — Eric Hoffer

The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself. — Eric Hoffer

What are we when we are alone? Some, when they are alone, cease to exist. — Eric Hoffer

What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine: it must be contrary to nature, to common sense and to pleasure. — Eric Hoffer

Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are. — Eric Hoffer

There is perhaps no better way of measuring the natural endowment of a soul than by its ability to transmute dissatisfaction into a creative impulse. — Eric Hoffer

It is not at all simple to understand the simple. — Eric Hoffer

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

Success and failure are unavoidably related in our minds with the state of things around us — Eric Hoffer

Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor. — Eric Hoffer

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership. — Eric Hoffer

Vaguely at first, then more distinctly, I realized that man is an eternal stranger on this planet. — Eric Hoffer

Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation. — Eric Hoffer

Sensuality reconciles us with the human race. The misanthropy of the old is due in large part to the fading of the magic glow of desire. — Eric Hoffer

Nature attains perfection, but man never does. — Eric Hoffer

To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him — Eric Hoffer

Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person. — Eric Hoffer

Every extreme attitude is a fight from the self. — Eric Hoffer

The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything. — Eric Hoffer

A man by himself is in bad company. — Eric Hoffer

The purpose of philosophers is to show people what is right under their noses. — Eric Hoffer

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

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

A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life — Eric Hoffer

A man's worth is what he is divided by what he thinks he is. — Eric Hoffer

It needs some intelligence to be truly selfish. The unintelligent can only be self-righteous. — Eric Hoffer

The readiness to praise others indicates a desire for excellence and perhaps an ability to realize it. — Eric Hoffer

To lose one's life is but to lose the present; and, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much. — Eric Hoffer

It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others. — Eric Hoffer

Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease. — Eric Hoffer

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. — Eric Hoffer

The words of the social critic Eric Hoffer were ringing true: Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket. — Christopher McDougall

There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves. — Eric Hoffer

Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent. — Eric Hoffer

Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. The crypto-businessman is the true revolutionary in a Communist country. — Eric Hoffer

It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living. — Eric Hoffer

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
— Eric Hoffer