Eric Hoffer Quotes

Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.

We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are never of one kind, that we never love without reservations and never hate with all our being cannot prevent us from seeing others as wholly black or white.

The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

A plant needs roots in order to grow. With man it is the other way around: only when he grows does he have roots and feels at home in the world.

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.

There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.

Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.

Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor.

Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.

Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.

Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.

To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.

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.

Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.

Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.

A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life

Action is basically a reaction against loss of balance - a flailing of the arms to to regain one's balance. To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium.

Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family-what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated?

The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion. According to Renan, "The day after that on which the world should no longer believe in God, atheists would be the wretchedest of all men."

Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or rather the rejection of the self. Dedication in the obverse side of self-rejection. Man alone is a religious animal because, as Montaigne points out, it is a malady confined to man, and not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves.

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.

Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.

Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own. Whether it is our own meaningless self we are upholding, or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith.

Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart. For we can win a man's heart one day and lose it the next. But when we break a proud spirit we achieve something that is final and absolute.

Faith is primarily a process of identification; the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.

Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.

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.

Rudeness is the weak man's limitation of strength.

They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.

The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.

Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

Successful action tends to become an end in itself.

The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome.

What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?

The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.

Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.

In human affairs, the best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from.

There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

There is nothing more explosive than a skilled population condemned to inaction. Such a population is likely to become a hotbed of extremism and intolerance, and be receptive to any proselytizing ideology, however absurd and vicious, which promises vast action.

It is a paradox that in our time of drastic rapid change, when the future is in our midst devouring the present before our eyes, we have never been less certain about what is ahead of us.

There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious.