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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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
The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Time, Loneliness, Age
The beginning of thought is in disagreement—not only with others but also with ourselves.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Dissent
Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Work
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Habit, Wisdom, Habits
Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Defects, Conformity
It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations—past and present—are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual’s hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millennia.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Individuality
To know a person’s religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Religion
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.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Deception/Lying, Power
When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Cowardice, Coward
A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Socialism, Communism
The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Depression
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Enemies, Enemy, Fear
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Bores, Boredom
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Evil
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
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Mistakes, Failures
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Propaganda
A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Nation
It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.
—Eric Hoffer
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Compassion
It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat; that they are chosen when they are shunned.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Defects, Weakness
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Happiness
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Opportunity
They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Awareness, Failure
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
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Technology
Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Waste
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
Topics: Youth
Even in slight things the experience of the new is rarely without some stirring of foreboding.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Change
You cannot gauge the intelligence of an American by talking with him; you must work with him. The American polishes and refines his way of doing things-even the most commonplace-the way the French of the 17th century polished their maxims.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: America
How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization!
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Sacrifice
To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Communication
Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Nation, Nationality, Nationalism, Nationalities
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
Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Ignorance
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Lies, Lying, Deception/Lying
Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Glory, Humility, Awareness, Fame
It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Death, Dying
A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Business, Negotiation
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George Santayana Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
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Ralph Waldo Emerson American Philosopher
Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian Philosopher