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
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart. For we can… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
One is not quite certain that creativeness in the arts, literature, and science functions best in an environment of absolute freedom. Chances… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would impose on man the passivity and… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
To think out a problem is not unlike drawing a caricature. You have to exaggerate the salient point and leave out that… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
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 Image
The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
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 Image
