Eric Hoffer quotes - page 3

A multitude of words is probably the most formidable means of blurring and obscuring thought. There is no thought, however momentous, that cannot be expressed lucidly in 200 words. (Eric Hoffer)
It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men. View quote
Eric Hoffer
It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable. View quote
Eric Hoffer
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. View quote
Eric Hoffer
Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority. View quote
Eric Hoffer
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing. View quote
Eric Hoffer
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. View quote
Eric Hoffer
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. View quote
Eric Hoffer
Some people have no original ideas because they do not think well enough of themselves to consider their ideas worth noticing and developing. View quote
Eric Hoffer
It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be. View quote
Eric Hoffer
Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death. (Eric Hoffer)
No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart. View quote
Eric Hoffer
The Renaissance was a time of mercenary soldiers, ours is a time of mercenary labor. View quote
Eric Hoffer
Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good. View quote
Eric Hoffer
When cowardice becomes a fashion its adherents are without number, and it masquerades as forbearance, reasonableness and whatnot. View quote
Eric Hoffer
We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion. View quote
Eric Hoffer
To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain enormously in confidence before he could conceive an all-powerful God who obeys his own laws. View quote
Eric Hoffer
A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend. View quote
Eric Hoffer
Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation. View quote
Eric Hoffer
The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility. View quote
Eric Hoffer
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless. (Eric Hoffer)
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves. View quote
Eric Hoffer
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause. View quote
Eric Hoffer
A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past. (1954), p. 75. View quote
Eric Hoffer
A good sentence is a key. It unlocks the mind of the reader. View quote
Eric Hoffer