For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
It is the fate of every great achievement to be pounced upon by pedants and imitators who drain it of life and… — 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
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
The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on… — 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
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 Copy Share Image
The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of… — 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
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
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
The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
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
“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
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
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
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
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
Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter — Eric Hoffer Copy Share
![“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/i/d12/eric-hoffer-343_life_one-thing-i-know-beyond-doubt-had-babbag_1364204.jpg)
