Eric Hoffer Quotes
- It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the by-product of a stalemate between opposite vices.
- The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than…
- One might equate growing up with a mistrust of words. A mature person trusts his eyes more than his ears. Irrationality often manifests itself in…
- Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not originate. To discover something wholly new can be…
- Facts are counterrevolutionary.
- When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it.
- Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts.
- However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
- Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about.
- We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need…
- The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome.
- Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others…
- Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
- People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a…
- There can be no freedom without freedom to fail.
- Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
- The aspiration toward freedom is the most essentially human of all human manifestations.
- We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
- We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in…
- Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.