No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Encouragement, Identity, Achievement
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Lies, Lying, Deception/Lying
Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would impose on man the passivity and predictability of matter. By this test, absolute power is the manifestation most inimical to human uniqueness. Absolute power wants to turn people into malleable clay.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Power
Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Ignorance
Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not originate. To discover something wholly new can be a matter of chance, of idle tinkering, or even of the chronic dissatisfaction of the untalented.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Originality, Innovation
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
It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.
—Eric Hoffer
What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Tradition
Intolerance is the “Do Not Touch” sign on something that cannot bear touching. We do not mind having our hair ruffled, but we will not tolerate any familiarity with the toupee which covers our baldness.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Tolerance
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
Topics: Future, The Present
A man by himself is in bad company.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Solitude
It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is as true of men as of dogs.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Loneliness
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Kindness, Compassion
The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.
—Eric Hoffer
There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Passion
Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Nationality, Nationalities, Nation, Nationalism
An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Difficulty, Stupidity
Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Solitude
To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief from the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Welfare
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
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Discontent, Awareness, Feelings
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Respect, Mistakes
When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it.
—Eric Hoffer
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Enemy, Enemies, Fear
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Opportunity
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.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Solitude
The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Sacrifice, Attitude, Forgiveness
The times of drastic change are times of passions. We can never really be prepared from 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. A population subjected to drastic change is, thus, a population of misfits, and misfits live and breathe in an atmosphere of passion.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Acceptance, Self-Esteem, Change, Confidence, New
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
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Failure, Loneliness
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- William James American Philosopher
- John Dewey American Philosopher
- Mortimer J. Adler American Philosopher, Educator
- 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
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