"Give people pride and they'll live on bread……" — Eric Hoffer
"Give people pride and they'll live on bread and water, bless their exploiters, and even die for them. Self-surrender is a transaction of barter: we surrender our sense of human dignity, our judgement, or moral and aesthetic sense for pride. If there is pride in being free, we are ready to die for liberty. If there is pride to be derived from an identification with a leader, we grovel in the dust before a Napoléon, Hitler or Stalin and are ready to die for him. If there is a distinction in suffering we search for martyrdom as for hidden treasure."
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Eric Hoffer
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462 Quotes by Eric Hoffer
Eric Hoffer has 462 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.
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Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.
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To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.
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Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed,…
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Help your sister's boat across the water, and yours too will reach the other side. Kindness can become its own…
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To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is…
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In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat.
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Creativity is discontent translated into arts.
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The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy…
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There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
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We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the remarkable fact that many…
See all 462 quotes by Eric Hoffer »
More Aesthetic Quotes
This quote is filed under Aesthetic Quotes,
one of 445 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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At one of the annual conventions of the American Society for Aesthetics much confusion arose when the Society for Anesthetics…
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No book includes the entire world. It's limited. And so it doesn't seem like an aesthetic compromise to have to…
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We're dabbling in eugenics all the time, breeding ideal crops to replace less aesthetic or nutritious or hardy varieties; leveling…
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I don't think it's possible to touch people's imagination today by aesthetic means.
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I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic. A…
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I've handled colour as a man should behave. You may conclude that I consider ethics and aesthetics as one.
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Visual art and writing don't exist on an aesthetic hierarchy that positions one above the other, because each is capable…
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There is a certain aesthetic pleasure in trying to imagine the unimaginable and failing, if you are a reader.
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I think we need the feminine qualities of leadership, which include attention to aesthetics and the environment, nurturing, affection, intuition…
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I think decor says a lot about someone's social position, their taste, their sensibility, their work - and also about…
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Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic…
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A designer is a planner with an aesthetic sense.
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