Where unity and self-sacrifice are indispensable for the normal functioning of society, everyday life is likely to be either religiofied (common tasks… — 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
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
Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
“To the Jews the age of 13 (the Sumerian unit of 12 plus 1) marks the threshold of adulthood. It is curious… — 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
“One thing I know beyond doubt. Had [Babbage] overheard someone he respected praise him highly it would have sweetened life for him… — 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
The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and function without him. This is… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Passionate hatreds can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. These people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
It is the acquisition of skills in particular, irrespective of their utility, that is potent in making life meaningful. Since man has… — 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 remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of turns, achievements, disappointments,… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
To be ruthless requires belief that our life on earth is but a brief prelude to an afterlife, or a temporary sacrifice… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The ideal of self-advancement which the civilizing west offers to backward populations brings with it the plague of individual frustration. All the… — 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
![“One thing I know beyond doubt. Had [Babbage] overheard someone he respected praise him highly it would have sweetened life for him for more than a day. We are starved for praise. It reconciles us with life. . . . Self-doubt is at the core of our being. We need people who by their attitude and…” quote by Eric Hoffer](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d12/eric-hoffer-343_life_one-thing-i-know-beyond-doubt-had-babbag_1364204.jpg)
