Eric Hoffer Quotes

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.

إن الآراء الفجة التي قد تصدر عن عدد من قادة الحركات الجماهيرية والعصرية قد تدفع المرء إلى الاعتقاد بأن قدرًا من السذاجة ينفع القائد، إن هذه الملاحظة غير صحيحة.
لم تكن سذاجة هتلر أو آمي ميكفرسون هي التي مكّنتهما من اجتذاب الأتباع؛ كان السبب الثقة المطلقة في النفس؛ هذه الثقة التي تُمكّن القائد من عرض أفكاره، مهما كانت مشوشة أو سطحية، بكل جرأة وإعتداد، ويمكن للقائد الحكيم الذي يتبع مسار حكمته إلى النهاية أن يحقق قدرًا مماثلًا من النجاح. الأفكار في حد ذاتها لا تلعب سوى دورًا صغيرًا في قيادة الحركة الجماهيرية، ما يهم هو المبادرات الجريئة والقدرة على تجاهل آراء الآخرين، وعلى تحدي العالم بأسره.

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength

The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind.

Pride is a sense of worth derived from something that is not organically part of us, while self-esteem derives from the potentialities and achievements of the self. We are proud when we identify ourselves with an imaginary self, a leader, a holy cause, a collective body or possessions. There is fear and intolerance in pride; it is sensitive and uncompromising. The less promise and potency in the self, the more imperative is the need for pride. The core of pride is self-rejection. It is true that when pride releases energies and serves as a spur to achievement, it can lead to a reconciliation with the self and the attainment of genuine self-esteem.

Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense and sublime truths are equally potent in readying people for self-sacrifice if they are accepted as the sole, eternal truth. It is obvious, therefore, that in order to be effective a doctrine must not be understood, but has rather to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. […] The devout are always urged to seek the absolute truth with their hearts and not their minds. […] If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague; and if neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable. One has to get to heaven or the distant future to determine the truth of an effective doctrine. When some part of a doctrine is relatively simple, there is a tendency among the faithful to complicate and obscure it.

Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience... The desire to escape or camouflage their unsatisfactory selves develops in the frustrated a facility for pretending — for making a show — and also a readiness to identify themselves wholly with an imposing spectacle.

An effective mass movement cultivates the idea of sin. It depicts the autonomous self not only as barren and helpless but also as vile. To confess and repent is to slough off one’s individual distinctness and separateness, and salvation is found by losing oneself in the holy oneness of the congregation.

ينزع الرجل إلى الاهتمام بشؤونه الخاصة عندما تكون جديرة بالاهتمام. أما عندما لا تكون لديه شؤون خاصة حقيقية, فإنه ينزع إلى نسيان شؤونه التي فقدت معناها والاهتمام بشؤون الآخرين الخاصة. يعبر هذا الاهتمام عن نفسه بالغيبة والتجسس والفضول, كما أنه يتجه إلى اهتمام غير طبيعي بالشؤون المجتمعية والقومية والعرقية. إننا عندما نهرب من أنفسنا نلقي بثقلنا على عاتق جارنا, أو نطبق على عنقه.

The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.

Discontent by itself does not invariably create a desire for change. Other factors have to be present before discontent turns into disaffection. One of these is a sense of power. Those who are awed by their surroundings do not think of change, no matter how miserable their condition. When our mode of life is so precarious as to make it patent that we cannot control the circumstances of our existence, we tend to stick to the proven and the familiar. We counteract a deep feeling of insecurity by making of our existence a fixed routine. We hereby acquire the illusion that we have tamed the unpredictable.

Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences — nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.

A plant needs roots in order to grow. With man it is the other way around: only when he grows does he have roots and feels at home in the world.

The conservatism of a religion — its orthodoxy — is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap. A rising religious movement is all change and experiment — open to new views and techniques from all quarters.