Eric Hoffer Quotes - Page 11

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• Conservatism is sometimes a symptom of sterility. Those who have nothing in them that can grow and develop must cling to what they have in beliefs, ideas and possessions. The sterile radical, too, is basically conservative. He is afraid to let go of the ideas and beliefs he picked up in his youth lest his life be seen as empty and wasted.

  Eric Hoffer

  Letting Go, Ideas, Society

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Animal, Men, Play

  "Reflections on the Human Condition". Book by Eric Hoffer. Section 28, 1973.

  7 Copy quote

• The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others. The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit this earth and the kingdom of heaven, too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish.

  Eric Hoffer

  Religious, Humility, Humble

  ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

  6 Copy quote

• We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

  Eric Hoffer

  Needs, Cures, Protest

  18 Copy quote

• You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.

  Eric Hoffer

  Acceptance, Self, Sin

  Eric Hoffer (1969). “Working and Thinking on the Waterfront: A Journal, June 1958-May 1959”

  6 Copy quote

• Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.

  Eric Hoffer

  Drama, Artist, Destiny

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Humble, Sacrifice, Self

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

  8 Copy quote

• The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche.

  Eric Hoffer

  Devil, Subconscious, Cunning

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  6 Copy quote

• When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse .

  Eric Hoffer

  Dream, Lying, Wrath

  Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.11, Harper Collins

  5 Copy quote

• Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

  Eric Hoffer

  Good Life, Fighting, Men

  "The Temper of Our Time". Book by Eric Hoffer, 1967.

  75 Copy quote

• A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.This minding of other people's business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat.

  Eric Hoffer

  Running, Fall, Men

  Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.14, Harper Collins

  47 Copy quote

• In man's life, the absence of an essential component usually leads to the adoption of a substitute. The substitute is usually embraced with vehemence and extremism, for we have to convince ourselves that what we took as second choice is the best there ever was. Thus blind faith is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves; insatiable desire a substitute for hope; accumulation a substitute for growth; fervent hustling a substitute for purposeful action; and pride a substitute for an unattainable self-respect.

  Eric Hoffer

  Pride, Men, Self

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  10 Copy quote

• A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion.

  Eric Hoffer

  Mean, Successful, Self

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

  11 Copy quote

• The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others.

  Eric Hoffer

  Self, Denial, Harsh

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  6 Copy quote

• Without a sense of proportion there can be neither good taste nor genuine intelligence, nor perhaps moral integrity.

  Eric Hoffer

  Integrity, Balance, Taste

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

  16 Copy quote

• Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.

  Eric Hoffer

  Frustration, Opportunity, Causes

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  5 Copy quote

• Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom."

  Eric Hoffer

  Responsibility, Men, Self

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  4 Copy quote

• The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.

  Eric Hoffer

  Leadership, Coaching, Vision

  Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

  30 Copy quote

• 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 millenia.

  Eric Hoffer

  Dream, Past, Civilization

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  8 Copy quote

• To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalizes -- we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world.

  Eric Hoffer

  Time, Numbers, People

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  9 Copy quote

• Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.

  Eric Hoffer

  Freedom, Men, Liberty

  Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

  18 Copy quote

• The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind.

  Eric Hoffer

  Passion, Sometimes, Born

  5 Copy quote

• The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breeds pride and arrogance.

  Eric Hoffer

  Religious, Humble, Pride

  ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

  9 Copy quote

• There is in even the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that what we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-renunciation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser and their like are not far behind the selfless in the exercise of self-sacrifice.

  Eric Hoffer

  Selfish, Passion, Exercise

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

  52 Copy quote

• The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.

  Eric Hoffer

  Mean, Insatiable Hunger, Majority

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  4 Copy quote

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