Skip to content

Self Quotes by Eric Hoffer

74 Self quotes by Eric Hoffer

All Self quotes Eric Hoffer’s page

Unused talents can rust inside us, feeding self‑doubt, while creating something restores confidence. The quotes contrast self‑sacrifice, which feels easier, with the harder path of self‑realization. They also note that even selfish drives contain a hidden desire to give up the self.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

“Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.”

Image

Rudeness luxuriates in the absence of self-respect.

Image

Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.

Image

Every extreme attitude is a fight from the self.

Image

Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.

Image

Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

Image

How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization!

Image

Only the individual who has come to terms with his self can have a dispassionate attitude toward the world.

Image

Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in…

Image

We probably have a greater love for those we support than for those who support us. Our vanity carries more weight than…

Image

The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the…

Image

It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.

Image

There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.

Image

Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide…

Image

A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion.

Image

Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create something in the image of nature is to…

Image

“We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is…

Image

There is need for some kind of make-believe in order to face death unflinchingly. To our real, naked selves there is not…

Image

A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy…

Image

Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense, and sublime truths are equally potent in readying people for self-sacrifice if they are accepted as the sole,…

Image

Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose…

Image

Nothing so bolsters our self-confidence and reconciles us with ourselves as the continuous ability to create; to see things grow and develop…

Image

Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born of experience and the possession of skill. Where there…

Image

The leader personifies the certitude of the creed and the defiance and grandeur of power. He articulates and justifies the resentment damned…

Image

The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is to convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are…

Image

The weak are not a noble breed. Their sublime deeds of faith, daring, and self-sacrifice usually spring from questionable motives. The weak…

Image

The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of…

Image

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

Image

Poverty when coupled with creativeness is usually free of frustration. This is true of the poor artisan skilled in his trade and…

Image

[The designated or chosen leader tries to] articulate and justify the resentment dammed up in the souls of the frustrated. He kindles…

Image

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

Image

The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious.

Image

It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world.

Image

The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others.

Image

It needs some intelligence to be truly selfish. The unintelligent can only be self-righteous.

Image

We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove…

Image

The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter.

Image

The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a…

Image

The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we…

Image

The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both…

Image

Other authors on Self

More by Eric Hoffer

The truth seems to be that propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new;…

When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant.

“We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.”

Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.

The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas.

It is also plausible that those movements with the greatest inner contradiction and between profession and practice - that is to say with a…

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

“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…

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…

A nation without dregs and malcontents, is orderly, decent, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still…

A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.

Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.

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