Eric Hoffer > Quotes

“Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.”
― Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms

“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
― Eric Hoffer

“We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
― Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time

“People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”
― Eric Hoffer

“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”
― Eric Hoffer

“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese--and no one says a word about refugees.

But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace.

Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.”
― Eric Hoffer

“When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.”
― eric hoffer

“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Anger is the prelude to courage.”
― Eric Hoffer

“We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities but its own talents.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.”
― Eric Hoffer

“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.”
― Eric Hoffer

“The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
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― Eric Hoffer

“It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
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― Eric Hoffer

“Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.”
― Eric Hoffer

“In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.”
― Eric Hoffer

“It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.”
― Eric Hoffer

“You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.”
― Eric Hoffer

“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.”
― Eric Hoffer

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.”
― Eric Hoffer

“An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.”
― Eric Hoffer

“To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.”
― Eric Hoffer