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
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
Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would impose on man the passivity and… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness… — 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… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Man is a luxury loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature,… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people.… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The superficiality of many is a result of deep fears. It takes spare time to think things out; it takes free time… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
There is a grandeur in the uniformity of the mass. When a fashion, a dance, a song, a slogan or a joke… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
Imitation is often a shortcut to a solution. We copy when we lack the inclination, the ability or the time to work… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The education explosion is producing a vast number of people who want to live significant, important lives but lack the ability to… — 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
People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalizes -- we are aware that what is happening to us has happened… — 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
