A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
All mass movements avail themselves of action as a means of unification. The conflicts a mass movement seeks and incites serve not… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
It is part of the formidableness of a genuine mass movement that the self-sacrifice it promotes includes also a sacrifice of some… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom — freedom to hate,… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
It is a strange thing that both the injurer and the injured, the sinner and he who is sinned against, should find… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and that they usually join… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Poverty when coupled with creativeness is usually free of frustration. This is true of the poor artisan skilled in his trade and… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears,… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. We join a mass movement to… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The vigor of a mass movement stems from the propensity of its followers for united action and self-sacrifice. When we ascribe the… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Marriage has for women many equivalents of joining a mass movement. It offers them a new purpose in life, a new future… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
There is a grandeur in the uniformity of the mass. When a fashion, a dance, a song, a slogan or a joke… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The truth seems to be that propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new;… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
It is also plausible that those movements with the greatest inner contradiction and between profession and practice - that is to say with a… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
“In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes--courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc.--can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
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… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
A nation without dregs and malcontents, is orderly, decent, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
