Eric Hoffer Quotes

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.

Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.

There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.

"Things which are not" are indeed mightier than "things that are". In all ages men have fought most desperately for beautiful cities yet to be built and gardens yet to be planted.

The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.

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.
This minding of other people's business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national, and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor's shoulder or fly at his throat. 2.10.

The enemy — the indispensible devil of every mass movement — is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors.

There is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice.

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.

Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.

It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.

Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.

The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.