There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently.… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Woe to him inside a non-conformist clique who does not conform to non-conformity. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. He is… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history.… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
A plant needs roots in order to grow. With man it is the other way around: only when he grows does he… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
A soul that is reluctant to share does not as a rule have much of its own. Miserliness is here a symptom… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the… — 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
It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts… — 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
