Eric Hoffer Quotes
Writer, Philosopher, Psychologist
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
Children are the keys of paradise.
You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.
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 and talents.
Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are.
An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.
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.
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.
It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.
We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.
Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent.
Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.
One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action.
Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
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.
The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
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.
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.
With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate.
Facts are counterrevolutionary.
The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
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.
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.
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.
We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.
We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.
Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.
We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.
Animals often strike us as passionate machines.
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.
Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.
A man by himself is in bad company.
It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.
To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.
It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.
We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true; they ruin our dreams.
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.
It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.