Top 593 Quotes & Sayings by Eric Hoffer
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer Eric Hoffer.
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities and talents.
The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.
We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.
It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.
The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.
Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
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.
The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
Children are the keys of paradise.
Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are.
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.
Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action.
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.
We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.
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.
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.
Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor.
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
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