Life Quotes by Eric Hoffer

It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.

— Eric Hoffer

When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it.

— Eric Hoffer

It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.

— Eric Hoffer

Man's chief goal in life is still to become and stay human, and defend his achievements against the encroachment of nature.

— Eric Hoffer

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

— Eric Hoffer

The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life.

— Eric Hoffer

Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.

— Eric Hoffer

Spiritual stagnation ensues when man's environment becomes unpredictable or when his inner life is made wholly predictable.

— Eric Hoffer

If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing…

— Eric Hoffer

A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of…

— Eric Hoffer

No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will…

— Eric Hoffer

An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity--the endless flow of life and death--than one who takes his…

— Eric Hoffer

To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an…

— Eric Hoffer

To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. It not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give…

— Eric Hoffer

It is the fate of every great achievement to be pounced upon by pedants and imitators who drain it of life and…

— Eric Hoffer

Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes.…

— Eric Hoffer

The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we…

— Eric Hoffer

The necessary has never been man's top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief…

— Eric Hoffer

All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of…

— Eric Hoffer

However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced…

— Eric Hoffer

Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but…

— Eric Hoffer

The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off…

— Eric Hoffer

The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of turns, achievements, disappointments,…

— Eric Hoffer

A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from…

— Eric Hoffer

In man's life, the absence of an essential component usually leads to the adoption of a substitute. The substitute is usually embraced…

— Eric Hoffer

Learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

— Eric Hoffer

To lose one's life is but to lose the present; and, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose…

— Eric Hoffer

The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

— Eric Hoffer

In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.

— Eric Hoffer

...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.

— Eric Hoffer

The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.

— Eric Hoffer

For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove…

— Eric Hoffer

The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is…

— Eric Hoffer

We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our…

— Eric Hoffer

I want to be remebered for the smile I gave them when they couldnt find there own. For the happieness that they…

— Eric Hoffer

It is a strange thing that both the injurer and the injured, the sinner and he who is sinned against, should find…

— Eric Hoffer

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

Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a…

— Eric Hoffer

There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the…

— Eric Hoffer

Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of…

— Eric Hoffer