Action can give us the feeling of being useful, but only words can give us a sense of weight and purpose. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as he really is. It is… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Give people pride and they'll live on bread and water, bless their exploiters, and even die for them. Self-surrender is a transaction… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The burning conviction that we have a holy duty towards others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills,… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. It not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The ignorant are a reservoir of daring. It almost seems that those who have yet to discover the known are particularly equipped… — 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
