Eric Hoffer quotes - page 4

To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats - we know it not. (Eric Hoffer)
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
Eric Hoffer
Anger is a prelude to courage.
Eric Hoffer
To believe that is we could but have this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness.
Eric Hoffer
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.
Eric Hoffer
What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.
Eric Hoffer
The capacity to resist coercion stems partly from the individual's identification with a group.
Eric Hoffer
God alone is satisfied with what He is and can proclaim: "I am what I am." Unlike God, man strives with all his might to be what he is not. He incessantly proclaims: "I am what I am not.
Eric Hoffer
To overestimate the originality of one's thoughts is perhaps a less serious defect than being unaware of their newness. There is a more pronounced lack of sensitivity in underestimating (ourselves and others) than in overestimating.
Eric Hoffer
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Eric Hoffer
The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance. (Eric Hoffer)
Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.
Eric Hoffer
A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
Eric Hoffer
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
Eric Hoffer
The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor.
Eric Hoffer
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
Eric Hoffer
Ours is a golden age of minorities. At no time in the past have dissident minorities felt so much at home and had so much room to throw their weight around. They speak and act as if they were "the people," and what they abominate most is the dissent of the majority.
Eric Hoffer
Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
Eric Hoffer
It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.
Eric Hoffer
Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.
Eric Hoffer
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. (Eric Hoffer)
To the old, the new is usually bad news.
Eric Hoffer
Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals; yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.
Eric Hoffer
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.
Eric Hoffer
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
Eric Hoffer