Eric Hoffer Quotes

The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
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
Fair play with others is primarily not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us.
Eric Hoffer
To believe that if only we had this or that we would be happy or to pursue any excessive desire diverts us from seeing that happiness depends on an adequate self.
Eric Hoffer
Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.
Eric Hoffer
When people are free to do as they please they usually imitate each other.
Eric Hoffer
Not actual suffering but the hope of better things incites people to revolt.
Eric Hoffer
It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.
Eric Hoffer
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.
Eric Hoffer
Power corrupts the few while weakness corrupts the many.
Eric Hoffer
The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility.
Eric Hoffer
However much we guard against it we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
Eric Hoffer
We are made kind by being kind.
Eric Hoffer
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
Eric Hoffer
People in a hurry cannot think cannot grow nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility.
Eric Hoffer
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
Eric Hoffer
Fear is uncertainty.
Eric Hoffer
When people are free to do as they please they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced and partakes of the nature of a protest.
Eric Hoffer
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.
Eric Hoffer
Not actual suffering but the hope of better things incites people to revolt.
Eric Hoffer
It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.
Eric Hoffer
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.
Eric Hoffer
Power corrupts the few while weakness corrupts the many.
Eric Hoffer
The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility.
Eric Hoffer
However much we guard against it we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
Eric Hoffer
We are made kind by being kind.
Eric Hoffer
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
Eric Hoffer
People in a hurry cannot think cannot grow nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility.
Eric Hoffer
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
Eric Hoffer
Fear is uncertainty.
Eric Hoffer
When people are free to do as they please they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced and partakes of the nature of a protest.
Eric Hoffer
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.
Eric Hoffer
The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind.
Eric Hoffer
To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life.
Eric Hoffer
There is a radicalism in all getting and a conservatism in all keeping. Lovemaking is radical while marriage is conservative.
Eric Hoffer
There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
Eric Hoffer
When people are free to do as they please they usually imitate each other.
Eric Hoffer
It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.
Eric Hoffer
It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action while the distant hope acts as an opiate.
Eric Hoffer
We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true they ruin our dreams.
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
We are made kind by being kind.
Eric Hoffer
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
Eric Hoffer
Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain whether of our worth or worthlessness we are almost impervious to fear. Thus a feeling of utter unworthiness can be a source of courage.
Eric Hoffer
Faith is primarily a process of identification the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.
Eric Hoffer
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands new undertakings and new forms of expression.
Eric Hoffer
Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.
Eric Hoffer
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Eric Hoffer
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
Eric Hoffer
Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.
Eric Hoffer
It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.
Eric Hoffer
Even in slight things the experience of the new is rarely without some stirring of foreboding.
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
It is thus with most of us we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.
Eric Hoffer
When people are bored it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.
Eric Hoffer
When people are bored it is primarily with their own selves.
Eric Hoffer
The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.
Eric Hoffer
Treasure the memories of past misfortunes they constitute our bank of fortitude.
Eric Hoffer
Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.
Eric Hoffer
There is perhaps some hope to be derived from the fact that in most instances where an attempt to realize an ideal society gave birth to the ugliness and violence of a prolonged active mass movement the experiment was made on a vast scale and with a heterogeneous population. Such was the case in the rise of Christianity and Islam, and in the French, Russian and Nazi revolutions. The promising communal settlements in the small state of Israel and the successful programs of socialization in the small Scandinavian states indicate perhaps that when the attempt to realize an ideal society is undertaken by a small nation with a more or less homogeneous population it can proceed and succeed in an atmosphere which is neither hectic nor coercive.
Eric Hoffer