Eric Hoffer Quotes

471 quotes in 4535 categories

• There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutionsto…
• To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain enormously in confidence before he could conceive an all-powerful…
• The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas.
• Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create something in the image of nature is to create a machine,…
• The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flowby the tilt of the social landscape.
• More significant than the fact that poets write abstrusely, painters paint abstractly, and composers compose unintelligible music is that people should admire what they cannot…
• Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties,…
• Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear. Thus a feeling of…
• The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.
• The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic change. We cling to what we call our common…
• There is probably nothing more sublime than discontent transmuted into a work of art, a scientific discovery, and so on.
• 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 compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is…
• Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that…
• A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.
• There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
• There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.
• A low capacity for getting along with those near us often goes hand in hand with a high receptivity to the idea of the brotherhood…
• There is a grandeur in the uniformity of the mass. When a fashion, a dance, a song, a slogan or a joke sweeps like wildfire…
• The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the…

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