KnowYourQuotes
（＾∀＾） try FastEmoji.com easy search emojis to copy-paste

The pre-human creature from which man evolved was unlike any other living thing in its malicious viciousness toward its own kind. Humanization was not a leap forward but a groping toward survival.


Eric Hoffer

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind. -Eric Hoffer.
ERIC HOFFER Oh, no. No. I was frustrated and emotional. There was no malicious intent toward anyone or any refer...
BILL CALLAHAN Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward ete...
DANIEL BARENBOIM If philosophy is practice, a demand to know the manner in which its history is to be studied is enta...
KARL JASPERS We cannot feel strongly toward the totally unlike because it is unimaginable, unrealizable; nor yet ...
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY The painting showed a hairless, oppressed creature with a head like an inverted pear, its hands clap...
PHILIP K. DICK Television is all right, I’ve nothing against it, but I don’t like how it turns you away from th...
STEPHEN KING There cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range ...
HELEN HUNT JACKSON A dying organism is often observed to be capable of extraordinary endurance and strength. ... When a...
JOHN STEINBECK I fear animals regard man as a creature of their own kind which has in a highly dangerous fashion lo...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE I fear animals regard man as a creature of their own kind which has in a highly dangerous fashion lo...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Evolution takes its sweet time in its work on our collective consciousness; the lasting leap from fe...
ANDREW FORSTHOEFEL Belfast is a city which, while not forgetting its past, is living comfortably with its present and l...
JAMES NESBITT Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality.
CLIFTON FADIMAN For man is not the creature and product of Mechanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator and pro...
THOMAS CARLYLE The West hasn't reached its universal state as yet, although its close to it, but it certainly h...
SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON The West hasn't reached its universal state as yet, although its close to it, but it certainly has e...
SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON At its best, an injunction creates a kind of vigilant heat that moves kids toward the light.
GREG BOYLE We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain a...
CARDINAL RATZINGER We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain a...
JOSEPH RATZINGER The school has totally changed its attitude toward a lot of things. It's not been easy.
DAVID GRACE We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain a...
POPE BENEDICT XVI Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, ...
LYSANDER SPOONER The only thing a person can ever really do is keep moving forward. Take that big leap forward withou...
ALYSON NOEL Cheese is milk's leap toward immortality.
CLIFF FADIMAN And so man, as existing transcendence abounding in and surpassing toward possibilities, is a creatur...
MARTIN HEIDEGGER America is a nation fundamentally ambivalent about its children, often afraid of its children, and f...
LETTY COTTIN POGREBIN The Way is not a religion: Christianity is the end of religion. 'Religion' means here the di...
DAVID KIRK I couldn't bring Eric down. I was in survival mode... . Everybody was in such pain.
LINDA PARDO Our position was that any company can do what they want, as long as they don't deny a pre-existing f...
JOE LOGAN From this, without doubt, sprang the fable. Man created it thus, because it was not given him to see...
ALFRED DE VIGNY Islam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the west at lea...
KAREN ARMSTRONG Word of mouth was its own kind of magic.
VICTORIA SCHWAB The introverted church is one which puts its own survival before its mission, its own identity above...
GIBSON WINTER Play is a uniquely adaptive act, not subordinate to some other adaptive act, but with a special func...
JOHAN HUIZINGA Nothing is more characteristic of a man than the mann in which he behaves toward fools.
HENRI-FRéDéRIC AMIEL The U.S. needs a forward-looking policy toward Indonesia that promotes genuine accountability for hu...
KAREN ORENSTEIN I have been obsequious toward Western civilization, exaggerating its merits and, at the same time, e...
LIU XIAOBO 'Hispanic' is a reference to Hispania, the name by which Spain was known in the Roman period...
ILAN STAVANS Cheese is milk's leap toward immortality.
CLIFTON FADIMAN This was more of a spur-of-the-moment thing. Its kind of hectic.
AARON KATZ The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject but man only.
THOMAS HOBBES The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject but man only
THOMAS HOBBES Every actor has a natural animosity toward every other actor, present or absent, living or dead.
LOUISE BROOKS He was the most inconsiderable creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only.
THOMAS HOBBES Clearly, all fear has an element of resistance and a leaning away from the moment. Its dynamic is no...
STEPHEN LEVINE My entire adolescence was geared toward one thing: gymnastics.
KERRI STRUG Any ground subtracts its own hue from the colors which it carries and therefore influences.
JOSEF ALBERS Infinity is a territory toward which the inherent human impetus of conquest can be productively dire...
VANNA BONTA In my experience, psychotherapy at its best is like dual meditation - it's like a container in w...
JACK KORNFIELD The human body is a machine which winds its own springs.
JULIEN OFFROY DE LA METTRIE If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no o...
JOSEPH BRODSKY A dream becomes a goal when action is taken toward its achievement.
BO BENNETT If Stephen King was a killer, he will be the best killer ever existed, check out his novels, check o...
DEYTH BANGER Sometimes the subconscious mind manifests a wisdom several steps or even years ahead of the consciou...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN The important thing is to strive toward a goal which is not immediately visible. That goal is not th...
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPéRY Sometimes the subconscious mind manifests a wisdom several steps or even years ahead of the consciou...
NATHANIEL BRANDEN When the Temple was destroyed, the Jewish people faced a crisis unlike any other in its history. For...
MEIR SOLOVEICHIK He held his own out there. He wore down toward the end, which is to be expected, but he was solid.
TONY MEOLA His experiences in having led other organizations toward national awards proved to be invaluable in ...
JOE ALEXANDER Live with your century; but do not be its creature.
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER Beauty always made a target of its possessor. Every other human quality was hidden easily enough –...
TOMMY WALLACH I like how you don't hide your problems like everyone else, and I don't have to hide mine when I'm a...
NED VIZZINI Christianity is not a religion but a relationship of love expressed toward God and men. The church i...
SHERWOOD ELIOT WIRT Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things whi...
BIBLE Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things whi...
BIBLE One fails forward toward success.
CHARLES KETTERING In terms of dollars, 2005 was so far above any previous year, it is in a class of its own.
BRAD NEIMAN I think making a pretense of civility toward Eric Alterman is like making a pretense of civility to ...
JOHN PODHORETZ It struck him that the true characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurit...
GEORGE ORWELL One fails forward toward success.
CHARLES F. KETTERING One fails forward toward success.
CHARLES F. KETTERING By law of periodical repetition, everything which has happened once must happen again and again -- a...
MARK TWAIN And when native man left off this form of development, his humanization was retarded in growth.
STANDING BEAR I could, as a free man, look across the bay toward the Eastern Shore where I was born a slave.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS If your art is calling to you, its doing so for a reason. You are feeling a pull toward something fo...
TERESA R. FUNKE, BURSTS OF BRILLIANCE FOR A CREATIVE LIFE BLOG That woman is a blessing from God. She was always looking toward the future.
MARVIN ANDERSON Art class was my thing, but not any other class.
DAN COLEN To be free from control is like to have a heavy cross to carry one moment then tossing it aside the ...
GARY F EVANS... How can a rational being be ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its own exertions?
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT He was one of a kind. I don't know any other man like him.
JOSEPH LAPID To be free from control is like to have a heavy cross to carry one moment then tossing it aside the ...
GARY F EVANS... If the federal government was doing its job, ranchers would not be living in fear.
CHRIS SIMCOX The traditional Christian attitude toward human personality was that human nature was essentially go...
CARROLL QUIGLEY Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledg...
SYDNEY J. HARRIS But, look, Washington is a town that creates myths for its own existence and its own amusement, and ...
KARL ROVE The measure of a friendship is not its physicality but its significance. Good friendships, online or...
ESTHER EARL Mary was one who possessed power over her own spirit--rare gift, given to none but those who do some...
GEORGE MACDONALD We do not create our destiny; we participate in its unfolding. Synchronicity works as a catalyst tow...
DAVID RICHO Perhaps because my town was so naturally gothic in its architecture and relative isolation - the roa...
ANDREW PYPER A substantial amount of research over the past decade has reinforced the idea that although internal...
DAN ARIELY Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is conscious: i.e., endowed with a consciou...
HELENA BLAVATSKY The historic beauty of BJJ rests not with its ability to allow a smaller man to maim a larger man, b...
CAMERON CONAWAY Slowly, deliberately, the dog turned from the black wolf and walked toward the man. He was a dog, an...
JIM KJELGAARD There was no incremental news that came out of the meeting. McDonald's has reached maturity in its l...
SANDY SANDERS The Fed is toward the end of its rate hikes. Equities and bonds got a bid because the Fed talked abo...
JOSEPH LAVORGNA A peculiar fact about termite-tapeworm-fungus-moss art is that it goes always forward, eating its ow...
MANNY FARBER It's a major undertaking, and that's what the Council on Postsecondary Education is directing all it...
DEBBIE NEWSOM A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secre...
CHARLES DICKENS

More Eric Hoffer

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. The resentment of the weak does not spring...
ERIC HOFFER Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would i...
ERIC HOFFER To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain e...
ERIC HOFFER The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of t...
ERIC HOFFER The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altoge...
ERIC HOFFER Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses ...
ERIC HOFFER There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
ERIC HOFFER The birth of the new constitutes a crisis, and its mastery calls for a crude and simple cast of mind...
ERIC HOFFER Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, ...
ERIC HOFFER Facts are counterrevolutionary.
ERIC HOFFER We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every...
ERIC HOFFER The self-styled intellectual who is impotent with pen and ink hungers to write history with sword an...
ERIC HOFFER The superficiality of the American is the result of his hustling. It needs leisure to think things o...
ERIC HOFFER The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do un...
ERIC HOFFER Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-eviden...
ERIC HOFFER The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
ERIC HOFFER We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the ...
ERIC HOFFER Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. The crypto-businessman is the t...
ERIC HOFFER Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The ...
ERIC HOFFER Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions m...
ERIC HOFFER To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of...
ERIC HOFFER Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.
ERIC HOFFER Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others.
ERIC HOFFER Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the p...
ERIC HOFFER We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
ERIC HOFFER We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER Man is a luxury loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a d...
ERIC HOFFER The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart ...
ERIC HOFFER There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which se...
ERIC HOFFER Youth itself is a talent -- a perishable talent.
ERIC HOFFER Friendship Never explain -- your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe it anyway...
ERIC HOFFER Old age equalizes -- we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from t...
ERIC HOFFER Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
ERIC HOFFER The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the id...
ERIC HOFFER Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling o...
ERIC HOFFER People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
ERIC HOFFER The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
ERIC HOFFER We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
ERIC HOFFER The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as ...
ERIC HOFFER Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense, and sublime truths are equally potent in readying people for se...
ERIC HOFFER Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions ...
ERIC HOFFER Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to...
ERIC HOFFER The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When t...
ERIC HOFFER It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.
ERIC HOFFER One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of...
ERIC HOFFER Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent.
ERIC HOFFER In the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything
ERIC HOFFER No matter how noble the objective of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human ...
ERIC HOFFER In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipp...
ERIC HOFFER Intolerance is the ''Do Not Touch'' sign on something that cannot bear touching. We do not mind havi...
ERIC HOFFER The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived b...
ERIC HOFFER Even the sober desire for progress is sustained by faith—faith in the intrinsic goodness of human ...
ERIC HOFFER In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves ...
ERIC HOFFER It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice.
ERIC HOFFER Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born ...
ERIC HOFFER It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.
ERIC HOFFER In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it g...
ERIC HOFFER Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does ...
ERIC HOFFER Discontent does not invariably create a desire for change. Other factors have to be present before ...
ERIC HOFFER The better part of statesmanship might be to know clearly and precisely what not to do.
ERIC HOFFER The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.
ERIC HOFFER The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised lan...
ERIC HOFFER The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without deprivin...
ERIC HOFFER ...the differences between the conservative and the radical seem to spring mainly from their attitud...
ERIC HOFFER ...when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advan...
ERIC HOFFER The burning conviction that we have a holy duty towards others is often a way of attaching our drown...
ERIC HOFFER Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is pe...
ERIC HOFFER We cannot hate those who we despise.
ERIC HOFFER There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
ERIC HOFFER Take man's most fantastic invention- God. Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the imag...
ERIC HOFFER One might equate growing up with a mistrust of words. A mature person trusts his eyes more than his...
ERIC HOFFER Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era of ...
ERIC HOFFER It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. ...
ERIC HOFFER It is the fate of every great achievement to be pounced upon by pedants and imitators who drain it o...
ERIC HOFFER A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.
ERIC HOFFER It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.
ERIC HOFFER It is perhaps not entirely so, though it has often been said, that man makes his God in his own imag...
ERIC HOFFER What are we when we are alone? Some, when they are alone, cease to exist.
ERIC HOFFER Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. ...
ERIC HOFFER The nineteenth century planted the words which the twentieth century ripened into the atrocities of ...
ERIC HOFFER We know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude; and men are more ready to...
ERIC HOFFER The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow--by...
ERIC HOFFER Words have ruined more souls than any devil's agency.
ERIC HOFFER Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon t...
ERIC HOFFER The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares no...
ERIC HOFFER Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.
ERIC HOFFER Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart. For we can...
ERIC HOFFER It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find them...
ERIC HOFFER It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.
ERIC HOFFER It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and presen...
ERIC HOFFER Man was nature's mistake --she neglected to finish him -- and she has never ceased paying for her mi...
ERIC HOFFER To the old, the new is usually bad news.
ERIC HOFFER We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we hav...
ERIC HOFFER To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
ERIC HOFFER Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about o...
ERIC HOFFER Animals often strike us as passionate machines.
ERIC HOFFER Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
ERIC HOFFER A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominate...
ERIC HOFFER When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it.
ERIC HOFFER When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
ERIC HOFFER Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not or...
ERIC HOFFER The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
ERIC HOFFER Thus we find that people who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossibl...
ERIC HOFFER The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wis...
ERIC HOFFER The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
ERIC HOFFER It is easier to love humanity than to love one's neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.
ERIC HOFFER There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a...
ERIC HOFFER It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, lite...
ERIC HOFFER The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Alta...
ERIC HOFFER Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
ERIC HOFFER The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian ...
ERIC HOFFER To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalizes -- we are aware that what is happening to us has ha...
ERIC HOFFER The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by d...
ERIC HOFFER The game of History is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of thr majority in th...
ERIC HOFFER It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opi...
ERIC HOFFER Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that ...
ERIC HOFFER To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalizes - we are aware that what is happening to us has hap...
ERIC HOFFER It is easier to love humanity as a whole that to love one's neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER One might equate growing up with a mistrust of words. A mature person trusts his eyes more than his ...
ERIC HOFFER The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandis...
ERIC HOFFER Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.
ERIC HOFFER Our greatest weariness comes from work not done.
ERIC HOFFER It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
ERIC HOFFER Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength
ERIC HOFFER Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us...
ERIC HOFFER The fact is that up to now a free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither ac...
ERIC HOFFER There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
ERIC HOFFER Marriage has for women many equivalents of joining a mass movement. It offers them a new purpose in ...
ERIC HOFFER A soul that is reluctant to share does not as a rule have much of its own. Miserliness is here a sym...
ERIC HOFFER Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.
ERIC HOFFER It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer f...
ERIC HOFFER The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flowby t...
ERIC HOFFER How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization!
ERIC HOFFER We can see through others only when we see through ourselves
ERIC HOFFER Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.
ERIC HOFFER It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations /past and present ...
ERIC HOFFER Friendship Never explain / your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe it anyway....
ERIC HOFFER We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire cr...
ERIC HOFFER How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem e...
ERIC HOFFER We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened
ERIC HOFFER To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life.
ERIC HOFFER A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.
ERIC HOFFER ...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.
ERIC HOFFER Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of...
ERIC HOFFER How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization.
ERIC HOFFER There is apparently no surer way of turning a thing into its opposite than by exaggerating it.
ERIC HOFFER The vigor of a mass movement stems from the propensity of its followers for united action and self-s...
ERIC HOFFER A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their ow...
ERIC HOFFER The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its...
ERIC HOFFER Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.
ERIC HOFFER The weak are not a noble breed. Their sublime deeds of faith, daring, and self-sacrifice usually sp...
ERIC HOFFER Rudeness luxuriates in the absence of self-respect.
ERIC HOFFER Thus we find that people who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossibl...
ERIC HOFFER The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
ERIC HOFFER When the Greeks said, "Whom the gods love die young," they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested,...
ERIC HOFFER What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.
ERIC HOFFER The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the begi...
ERIC HOFFER The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not ...
ERIC HOFFER When watching men of power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they know it or no...
ERIC HOFFER When we leave people on their own, we are delivering them into the hands of a ruthless taskmaster fr...
ERIC HOFFER There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self...
ERIC HOFFER The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their ...
ERIC HOFFER Add a few drops of malice to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
ERIC HOFFER Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.
ERIC HOFFER To believe that if we could but have this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization t...
ERIC HOFFER Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are.
ERIC HOFFER The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When ...
ERIC HOFFER Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or our worthlessn...
ERIC HOFFER The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.
ERIC HOFFER It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power- power to op...
ERIC HOFFER Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do free...
ERIC HOFFER Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, w...
ERIC HOFFER Despair and misery are static factors. The dynamism of an uprising flows from hope and pride. Not ...
ERIC HOFFER The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by de...
ERIC HOFFER When we debunk a fanatical faith or prejudice, we do not strike at the root of fanaticism. We merel...
ERIC HOFFER Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER In man's life, the absence of an essential component usually leads to the adoption of a substitute. ...
ERIC HOFFER Those of little faith are of little hatred.
ERIC HOFFER Whoever originated the cliche that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the natu...
ERIC HOFFER Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in s...
ERIC HOFFER Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others
ERIC HOFFER In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equippe...
ERIC HOFFER Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possib...
ERIC HOFFER It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
ERIC HOFFER It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites --opposi...
ERIC HOFFER No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need p...
ERIC HOFFER The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in th...
ERIC HOFFER There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.
ERIC HOFFER What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?
ERIC HOFFER Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing...
ERIC HOFFER Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like ...
ERIC HOFFER We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and con...
ERIC HOFFER Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of a...
ERIC HOFFER Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the...
ERIC HOFFER Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And w...
ERIC HOFFER There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
ERIC HOFFER We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meani...
ERIC HOFFER