Eric Hoffer (1902–83) was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that his book The Ordeal of Change was his finest work. In 2001, the Eric Hoffer Award was established in his honor with permission granted by the Eric Hoffer Estate in 2005.
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The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Belief
Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Science Fiction
There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Tyranny, Existence
There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutions to cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Faith
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Happiness
It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Dying, Death
When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Prejudice
The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Wisdom
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Doubt
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.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Fanaticism
Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Identity
There is a grandeur in the uniformity of the mass. When a fashion, a dance, a song, a slogan or a joke sweeps like wildfire from one end of the continent to the other, and a hundred million people roar with laughter, sway their bodies in unison, hum one song or break forth in anger and denunciation, there is the overpowering feeling that in this country we have come nearer the brotherhood of man than ever before.
—Eric Hoffer
There is probably an element of malice in the readiness to overestimate people; we are laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.
—Eric Hoffer
Man was nature’s mistake—she neglected to finish him—and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Humankind, Humanity
There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother’s keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.
—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
Topics: Hope, Motivation
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
The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flowby the tilt of the social landscape.
—Eric Hoffer
Man is a luxury loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Wealth
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.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Tyranny
We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs inordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Confidence
Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Nationalities, Nationality, Nation, Nationalism
Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Leadership
To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Communication
There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Passion
The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we call our common sense, our practical point of view. Actually, these are names for an all-absorbing familiarity with things as they are…. Thus it happens that when the times become unhinged, it is the practical people who are caught unaware…still clinging to things that no longer exist.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Change
The fear of becoming a ‘has-been’ keeps some people from becoming anything.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Fashion
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Manners
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Deception/Lying, Lies, Lying
A man by himself is in bad company.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Solitude
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William James American Philosopher
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Charles Sanders Peirce American Philosopher
Will Durant American Historian
Henry David Thoreau American Philosopher
George Santayana Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Rollo May American Philosopher
Ralph Waldo Emerson American Philosopher
Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian Philosopher