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
...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when… — 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
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
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
The desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection- real or imagined- by… — 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
It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for… — 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
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
Some people have no original ideas because they do not think well enough of themselves to consider their ideas worth noticing and… — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
The purpose of philosophers is to show people what is right under their noses. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
A compilation of what outstanding people said or wrote at the age of 20 would make a collection of asinine pronouncements. — Eric Hoffer Copy Share Image
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them. — 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
Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still… — 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
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves. — 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
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
With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only… — 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
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
