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Reflections on the Human Condition
Eric Hoffer--one of America's most important thinkers and the author of The True Believer--lived for years as a Depression Era migratory worker. Self-taught, his appetite for knowledge--history, science, mankind--formed the basis of his insight to human nature. Reflections on the Human Condition is a collection of poignant aphorisms taken from his writings. (Restored to print by noted author Christopher Klim.)
88 pages, Paperback
First published September 8, 2006
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692 people want to read
About the author
Eric Hoffer
42 books588 followersEric Hoffer was an American social writer and philosopher. He produced ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983 by President of the United States Ronald Reagan. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that his book The Ordeal of Change was his finest work. In 2001, the Eric Hoffer Award was established in his honor with permission granted by the Eric Hoffer Estate in 2005.
Early life
Hoffer was born in the Bronx, New York City in 1902 (or possibly 1898), the son of Knut and Elsa Hoffer, immigrants from Alsace. By the age of five, he could read in both German and English. When he was age five, his mother fell down a flight of stairs with Eric in her arms. Hoffer went blind for unknown medical reasons two years later, but later in life he said he thought it might have been due to trauma. ("I lost my sight at the age of seven. Two years before, my mother and I fell down a flight of stairs. She did not recover and died in that second year after the fall.I lost my sight and for a time my memory"). After his mother's death he was raised by a live-in relative or servant, a German woman named Martha. His eyesight inexplicably returned when he was 15. Fearing he would again go blind, he seized upon the opportunity to read as much as he could for as long as he could. His eyesight remained, and Hoffer never abandoned his habit of voracious reading.
Hoffer was a young man when his father, a cabinetmaker, died. The cabinetmaker's union paid for the funeral and gave Hoffer a little over three hundred dollars. Sensing that warm Los Angeles was the best place for a poor man, Hoffer took a bus there in 1920. He spent the next 10 years on Los Angeles' skid row, reading, occasionally writing, and working odd jobs. On one such job, selling oranges door-to-door, he discovered he was a natural salesman and could easily make good money. Uncomfortable with this discovery, he quit after one day.
In 1931, he attempted suicide by drinking a solution of oxalic acid, but the attempt failed as he could not bring himself to swallow the poison. The experience gave him a new determination to live adventurously. It was then he left skid row and became a migrant worker. Following the harvests along the length of California, he collected library cards for each town near the fields where he worked and, living by preference, "between the books and the brothels." A seminal event for Hoffer occurred in the mountains where he had gone in search of gold. Snowed in for the winter, he read the Essays by Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne's book impressed Hoffer deeply, and he often made reference to its importance for him. He also developed a great respect for America's underclass, which, he declared, was "lumpy with talent."
Longshoreman
Hoffer was in San Francisco by 1941. He attempted to enlist in the Armed forces there in 1942 but was rejected because of a hernia. Wanting to contribute to the war effort, he found ample opportunity as a longshoreman on the docks of The Embarcadero. It was there he felt at home and finally settled down. He continued reading voraciously and soon began to write while earning a living loading and unloading ships. He continued this work until he retired at age 65.
Hoffer considered his best work to be The True Believer, a landmark explanation of fanaticism and mass movements. The Ordeal of Change is also a literary favorite. In 1970 he endowed the Lili Fabilli and Eric Hoffer Laconic Essay Prize for students, faculty, and staff at the University of California, Berkeley.
Hoffer was a charismatic individual and persuasive public speaker, but said that he didn’t really care about people. Despite authoring 10 books and a newspaper column, in retirement Hoffer continued his robust life of the mind, thinking and writing alone, in an apartment.
Early life
Hoffer was born in the Bronx, New York City in 1902 (or possibly 1898), the son of Knut and Elsa Hoffer, immigrants from Alsace. By the age of five, he could read in both German and English. When he was age five, his mother fell down a flight of stairs with Eric in her arms. Hoffer went blind for unknown medical reasons two years later, but later in life he said he thought it might have been due to trauma. ("I lost my sight at the age of seven. Two years before, my mother and I fell down a flight of stairs. She did not recover and died in that second year after the fall.I lost my sight and for a time my memory"). After his mother's death he was raised by a live-in relative or servant, a German woman named Martha. His eyesight inexplicably returned when he was 15. Fearing he would again go blind, he seized upon the opportunity to read as much as he could for as long as he could. His eyesight remained, and Hoffer never abandoned his habit of voracious reading.
Hoffer was a young man when his father, a cabinetmaker, died. The cabinetmaker's union paid for the funeral and gave Hoffer a little over three hundred dollars. Sensing that warm Los Angeles was the best place for a poor man, Hoffer took a bus there in 1920. He spent the next 10 years on Los Angeles' skid row, reading, occasionally writing, and working odd jobs. On one such job, selling oranges door-to-door, he discovered he was a natural salesman and could easily make good money. Uncomfortable with this discovery, he quit after one day.
In 1931, he attempted suicide by drinking a solution of oxalic acid, but the attempt failed as he could not bring himself to swallow the poison. The experience gave him a new determination to live adventurously. It was then he left skid row and became a migrant worker. Following the harvests along the length of California, he collected library cards for each town near the fields where he worked and, living by preference, "between the books and the brothels." A seminal event for Hoffer occurred in the mountains where he had gone in search of gold. Snowed in for the winter, he read the Essays by Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne's book impressed Hoffer deeply, and he often made reference to its importance for him. He also developed a great respect for America's underclass, which, he declared, was "lumpy with talent."
Longshoreman
Hoffer was in San Francisco by 1941. He attempted to enlist in the Armed forces there in 1942 but was rejected because of a hernia. Wanting to contribute to the war effort, he found ample opportunity as a longshoreman on the docks of The Embarcadero. It was there he felt at home and finally settled down. He continued reading voraciously and soon began to write while earning a living loading and unloading ships. He continued this work until he retired at age 65.
Hoffer considered his best work to be The True Believer, a landmark explanation of fanaticism and mass movements. The Ordeal of Change is also a literary favorite. In 1970 he endowed the Lili Fabilli and Eric Hoffer Laconic Essay Prize for students, faculty, and staff at the University of California, Berkeley.
Hoffer was a charismatic individual and persuasive public speaker, but said that he didn’t really care about people. Despite authoring 10 books and a newspaper column, in retirement Hoffer continued his robust life of the mind, thinking and writing alone, in an apartment.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 12, 2010
One of my favorite books from one of my favorite authors. RotHC is a collection of aphorisms and short thoughts from Hoffer organized categorically.
I recommend this book to anyone with a few minutes time.
One favorite of mine:
"One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive - it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men."
I recommend this book to anyone with a few minutes time.
One favorite of mine:
"One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive - it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men."
September 25, 2008
Some of it was incredibly outdated, some of it was right on the mark. What a weird man. I wanted to copy out sections of this book:
"People who cannot grow want to leap: they want short cuts to fame, fortune, and happiness."
"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."
"People who cannot grow want to leap: they want short cuts to fame, fortune, and happiness."
"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."
July 13, 2014
Men, technology and society, no one nails it better than Hoffer on the relationship amongst the three. Those who says this book is outdated should come back to it in ten years of time, or understand the state of the technological society now. Hoffer is timeless.
February 19, 2025
يمكن للطبيعة أن تصل إلى الكمال، ولكن الإنسان لا يصل إليه أبدًا. فالنحلة كاملة في أدائها، ولكن أداء الإنسان لا يكتمل أبداً. فهو حيوانٌ وإنسانٌ في نفس الوقت. وهذا النقص الذي لا يمكن علاجه هو ما يميز الإنسان عن غيره من الكائنات الحية. ففي محاولاته لإكمال ذاته، يصبح قادراً على الخلق. وعلاوة على ذلك، فإن النقص الذي لا يمكن علاجه يجعل الإنسان غير ناضج إلى الأبد، وقادرًا على التعلم والنمو إلى الأبد.
.
إريك هوفر
ترجمة #ماهررزوق
.
إريك هوفر
ترجمة #ماهررزوق
September 23, 2020
Is it a good sign if a philosophy book can double as a self-help guide? Or opposite?
buhp- 4 stars!
buhp- 4 stars!
September 18, 2025
"Laughter" is schadenfreude. I can't believe it. Stop projecting on other people. What a repulsive comprehension of laughter. It is not schadenfreude for most people, they actually think things are funny in a good way with no mind to hurting people. Only a psychopath is going to struggle to believe this is true and only be able to laugh if it's hurting someone or schadenfreude. What a repulsive people. This is not the case for everyone. Stop projecting.
Don't you love some good undermining in the morning? Oh, that's too committed, that was behind Nazi and Soviet Unions turning souls into machines. Too much faith is too much power. His gripe is with faith as power and how he can't compete. Like sorry things keeping up isn't your strong suit man. I don't have that problem and my cognitions naturally and easily reflect not having that problem. Wallow miserably in your losing position without trying to ruin other people's mastery. You don't march into concentration camps to liberate them because "well, to be frank, I'm still not sure" floozying. Is that what should've happened? They should have just floozyed around not sure if they needed to liberate it to avoid becoming a machine of committment? That was running on pure faith that that was the morally right thing to do, from Russia's long history of committed Christianity, denied or not in the Soviet Union. Those Soviet Union posters are the same icons of Russian orthodox, you can't change my mind. To be fair, at first they did listen, and didn't really want to liberate them themselves. The Soviet Union hesitated with up to one million Jews dead according to Polish intelligence before they even really got around to taking action. So hey, they kind of listened. #democracy #factorineveryvoice
Seriously. This Eric person is the world's biggest narcissist. Can't compete with the level of fearless commitment so now your soul is a machine but don't forget that true art takes self-discipline and bravery. But that's ok, that's not a machine anymore, even though you are describing the exact same thing. That is the exact same sh*t you just took a dump on. Low self-consistency with that kind of vanity.
I have never seen such vanity and narcissism as this book.
You think it'll be a good book, right? Looks like a classic book. Get ready for a barrage of self-inconsistency proudly flailed about without even noticing itself, constant undermining, and the world's worst narcissism. I can't even believe the level of narcissism.
Everything is animal this, animal that, but humans are better than animals. You are an animal my guy with a really strong PFC. Rate my hypothesis: People who emphasize that humans are better than animals constantly instead of accepting we are mainly animals with stronger prefrontal cortexes (I did like the part how humans turn obstacles into opportunities, that is the expensive human intelligence prefrontal cortex part, still an animal though, that part I agree with...other animals don't see anything in obstacles and just kind of move around them without thinking or tinkering later) are actually way closer to actually walking around on their rears with baboon butts so they feel more terrified by the proximity of that impending devolution than those who don't constantly have this neurosis every other aphorism. I rate that hypothesis a 10 and I think I'm correct.
Learn to identify envy, find it pathetic, and move on. Laugh in its face, and move on. You don't have time for it. Who takes the envious jabs of someone who obviously is just rage clawing at you from envy and misery at their own life personally? The best response is just profound pity that they're going to cause you pain simply because they can't compete, laugh in the face of this undermining attempt, and waste 0 more time on it. It's clearly envy, what a miserly life. Not worth your time.
I once read about a native woman who was in such deep rapport with her huge macrolevel ecosystem that she successfully predicted abnormal and strange freezes and was able to somewhat get at the cause correctly in the Snohomish area well before the internet. Though she wasn't gifted at the causal explanation of it, she successfully mapped the information from a huge macrosystem onto her own body creating deadly accurate simulacrum through her own mind and body with earth. That's a god's glory moment. It might not be too much use without someone analytically organizing the cause beyond just listening her feeling completely helpless to the root causes, which is a valid criticism, but calling a spade a spade and getting the vocabulary for what was previously wordless is how you get a lot of trains mysteriously going into the trees get called a Holocaust when nobody has ever seen or heard something that horrific before. It's a critical step, to create the correct vocabulary, and then analysis can go in and come up with the causal chain of events, impossible if it can't even be cognitively encapsulated in a vocabulary container of various types of language due to nobody else being able to cognitively encapsulate such a large macrosystem effect. Tesla was also an uncanny predictor. His IQ was in the 170s. They had inarguable results with all this. Animals do not have 170+ IQs, this is clear jealousy. Take your gift and laugh in the face of people who are too small for a god's glory perspective. That is god's glory if I ever saw it, that level of rapport with that massive of an ecosystem and it's not faked for attention or anything. She actually noticed and felt the anomaly in her own body. She was a real conduit. It wasn't for attention, neither was Tesla's. But if you take these people trying to denigrate it, and give it to them, all they do is use it for attention. That's probably why they were never entrusted with the gift. They would just use it for attention instead of use it for its actual purpose, communicating with the earth, time, and the macrosystem in deep rapport with it.
I can't even make it up. Here's here calling people mediocre tinkerers with the world's crappiest, pooped out, self-inconsistent aphormisms. Like go back and check if you aphorisms are at least self-consistent since they already clearly aren't evidence based or part of a greater, more self-consistent work in any way then going on to say telepathy, an alleged sense that those off the frequency due to be being below it and not capturing it wouldn't possess, is an animal thing. Is seeing the full spectrum of colors a lower animal thing? Spoken like a dog that can't compete. Does anyone think a dog that can't see the full spectrum of colors has any right to call greater animals lower animals? No. Enjoy your two colors man. That makes you the animal, not the other person.
"If I can't compete, it's an animal." What a joke. Who would take this sh*t personally and not just immediately see it for the envy it is.
I'm not even kidding. This is the worst narcissist I've ever seen. He's literally trying to take shots at telepathy. Can't make it up. He takes shots at telepathy in several aphorisms. I can't make it up. He is unironically trying to bust up telepathy. I can't make it up. I wish I could. I wish I had. This is actually happening. This has to be the world's worst narcissist.
Goodbye. Can't believe the narcissism. Don't you want a hot, steaming plate of low self-awareness, narcissism, extreme vanity, undermining from inability to compete in the morning?
Only thing I liked is how talented people bleed their art from necessity. Then he gives you some half-butted aphorisms crapped out. Yeah, you're a real expert on all that. This is just god tier writing man.
Don't you love some good undermining in the morning? Oh, that's too committed, that was behind Nazi and Soviet Unions turning souls into machines. Too much faith is too much power. His gripe is with faith as power and how he can't compete. Like sorry things keeping up isn't your strong suit man. I don't have that problem and my cognitions naturally and easily reflect not having that problem. Wallow miserably in your losing position without trying to ruin other people's mastery. You don't march into concentration camps to liberate them because "well, to be frank, I'm still not sure" floozying. Is that what should've happened? They should have just floozyed around not sure if they needed to liberate it to avoid becoming a machine of committment? That was running on pure faith that that was the morally right thing to do, from Russia's long history of committed Christianity, denied or not in the Soviet Union. Those Soviet Union posters are the same icons of Russian orthodox, you can't change my mind. To be fair, at first they did listen, and didn't really want to liberate them themselves. The Soviet Union hesitated with up to one million Jews dead according to Polish intelligence before they even really got around to taking action. So hey, they kind of listened. #democracy #factorineveryvoice
Seriously. This Eric person is the world's biggest narcissist. Can't compete with the level of fearless commitment so now your soul is a machine but don't forget that true art takes self-discipline and bravery. But that's ok, that's not a machine anymore, even though you are describing the exact same thing. That is the exact same sh*t you just took a dump on. Low self-consistency with that kind of vanity.
I have never seen such vanity and narcissism as this book.
You think it'll be a good book, right? Looks like a classic book. Get ready for a barrage of self-inconsistency proudly flailed about without even noticing itself, constant undermining, and the world's worst narcissism. I can't even believe the level of narcissism.
Everything is animal this, animal that, but humans are better than animals. You are an animal my guy with a really strong PFC. Rate my hypothesis: People who emphasize that humans are better than animals constantly instead of accepting we are mainly animals with stronger prefrontal cortexes (I did like the part how humans turn obstacles into opportunities, that is the expensive human intelligence prefrontal cortex part, still an animal though, that part I agree with...other animals don't see anything in obstacles and just kind of move around them without thinking or tinkering later) are actually way closer to actually walking around on their rears with baboon butts so they feel more terrified by the proximity of that impending devolution than those who don't constantly have this neurosis every other aphorism. I rate that hypothesis a 10 and I think I'm correct.
Learn to identify envy, find it pathetic, and move on. Laugh in its face, and move on. You don't have time for it. Who takes the envious jabs of someone who obviously is just rage clawing at you from envy and misery at their own life personally? The best response is just profound pity that they're going to cause you pain simply because they can't compete, laugh in the face of this undermining attempt, and waste 0 more time on it. It's clearly envy, what a miserly life. Not worth your time.
I once read about a native woman who was in such deep rapport with her huge macrolevel ecosystem that she successfully predicted abnormal and strange freezes and was able to somewhat get at the cause correctly in the Snohomish area well before the internet. Though she wasn't gifted at the causal explanation of it, she successfully mapped the information from a huge macrosystem onto her own body creating deadly accurate simulacrum through her own mind and body with earth. That's a god's glory moment. It might not be too much use without someone analytically organizing the cause beyond just listening her feeling completely helpless to the root causes, which is a valid criticism, but calling a spade a spade and getting the vocabulary for what was previously wordless is how you get a lot of trains mysteriously going into the trees get called a Holocaust when nobody has ever seen or heard something that horrific before. It's a critical step, to create the correct vocabulary, and then analysis can go in and come up with the causal chain of events, impossible if it can't even be cognitively encapsulated in a vocabulary container of various types of language due to nobody else being able to cognitively encapsulate such a large macrosystem effect. Tesla was also an uncanny predictor. His IQ was in the 170s. They had inarguable results with all this. Animals do not have 170+ IQs, this is clear jealousy. Take your gift and laugh in the face of people who are too small for a god's glory perspective. That is god's glory if I ever saw it, that level of rapport with that massive of an ecosystem and it's not faked for attention or anything. She actually noticed and felt the anomaly in her own body. She was a real conduit. It wasn't for attention, neither was Tesla's. But if you take these people trying to denigrate it, and give it to them, all they do is use it for attention. That's probably why they were never entrusted with the gift. They would just use it for attention instead of use it for its actual purpose, communicating with the earth, time, and the macrosystem in deep rapport with it.
I can't even make it up. Here's here calling people mediocre tinkerers with the world's crappiest, pooped out, self-inconsistent aphormisms. Like go back and check if you aphorisms are at least self-consistent since they already clearly aren't evidence based or part of a greater, more self-consistent work in any way then going on to say telepathy, an alleged sense that those off the frequency due to be being below it and not capturing it wouldn't possess, is an animal thing. Is seeing the full spectrum of colors a lower animal thing? Spoken like a dog that can't compete. Does anyone think a dog that can't see the full spectrum of colors has any right to call greater animals lower animals? No. Enjoy your two colors man. That makes you the animal, not the other person.
"If I can't compete, it's an animal." What a joke. Who would take this sh*t personally and not just immediately see it for the envy it is.
I'm not even kidding. This is the worst narcissist I've ever seen. He's literally trying to take shots at telepathy. Can't make it up. He takes shots at telepathy in several aphorisms. I can't make it up. He is unironically trying to bust up telepathy. I can't make it up. I wish I could. I wish I had. This is actually happening. This has to be the world's worst narcissist.
Goodbye. Can't believe the narcissism. Don't you want a hot, steaming plate of low self-awareness, narcissism, extreme vanity, undermining from inability to compete in the morning?
Only thing I liked is how talented people bleed their art from necessity. Then he gives you some half-butted aphorisms crapped out. Yeah, you're a real expert on all that. This is just god tier writing man.
December 23, 2016
This is a short little book, just 86 pages. It is a collection of 183 aphorisms collected from his other works ranging from short sentences to a couple that are a page and a half long.
Hoffer, the author of the best seller The True Believer is a master of the pithy quote. This collection is divided into five categories - Between the Dragon and the Devil, Troublemakers, Creators, Prognosticators and Individuals.
As always, he is an astute observer of the human condition and offers a lot of insights into what makes people tick. I found myself reflecting on many of these quotations. Not always agreeing, but always intrigued.
Hoffer, the author of the best seller The True Believer is a master of the pithy quote. This collection is divided into five categories - Between the Dragon and the Devil, Troublemakers, Creators, Prognosticators and Individuals.
As always, he is an astute observer of the human condition and offers a lot of insights into what makes people tick. I found myself reflecting on many of these quotations. Not always agreeing, but always intrigued.
June 16, 2012
This book is little more than a collection of Hoffer's sayings and general opinions which, removed from their supporting material, lose much of their impact. Though Hoffer wrote with a lot of density, condensing powerful ideas into small doses, these passages are more designed to inspire curiosity about Hoffer than to satisfy it. For people who want an introduction to America's most prominent lay intellectual, I would refer them to The True Believer or The Ordeal of Change rather than this books.
January 16, 2013
The True Believer made an impact on me when I was in college. I thought Hoffer really nailed the desire to join a mass movement. As I get older and realize how few individuals are truly independent thinkers, the book has grown in my estimation. When I stumbled across this book at the used bookstore, I thought it would be a great, short read - a collection of Hoffer aphorisms about human nature. Alas, it was disappointing. There were some interesting observations but none were all that insightful or relevant to today.
March 14, 2016
Interesting Observations...
Hoffer's work offers some interesting observations about the human condition. Many of his observations are spot on, others I had to think about before realizing that they are also correct. Hoffer spend many years observing the human race and brings forth his observations in this excellent work...
Hoffer's work offers some interesting observations about the human condition. Many of his observations are spot on, others I had to think about before realizing that they are also correct. Hoffer spend many years observing the human race and brings forth his observations in this excellent work...
June 9, 2019
Patience is a byproduct of growth; we can bide our time when it is the time of our growth. There is no patience in acquisition or in the pursuit of power and frame. Nothing is so impatient as the pursuit of a substitute for growth. .. People who cannot grow want to leap; they want shortcuts to fame, fortune, and happiness.
June 14, 2016
A collection of aphorisms, some of which I found so profound that I found myself giggling with excitement. Great fun. What a find!
May 29, 2025
Eric Hoffer may well be the J. Krishnamurti of the United States—born not of a spiritual tradition but of the raw, hardscrabble realism of the Great Depression. A self-educated longshoreman with the soul of a philosopher, Hoffer distills the chaos of the human experience into short, searing reflections that cut straight to the marrow.
Reflections on the Human Condition is not a book to be read in one sitting, though its format tempts it. Each entry—no more than a few lines—is a standalone meditation, but together they form a stark and illuminating mosaic of what drives individuals and societies.
Hoffer explores:
• The deep hunger for belonging and meaning, especially through mass movements.
• The dangers of ideological purity and moral certainty.
• Power’s tendency to corrupt not just the powerful, but the obedient.
• The uneasy tension between personal freedom and collective identity.
• The contradictions that make civilization both magnificent and fragile.
His voice is blunt, unpretentious, often cynical, but always rooted in clear-eyed compassion for the human struggle. Hoffer doesn't speak from academia or elite circles. He speaks as a man who worked with his hands, watched the world with open eyes, and refused to be seduced by simple answers.
Like Krishnamurti, Hoffer challenges us to unmask the illusions we cling to—not to despair, but to better understand what it means to be human. Reflections on the Human Condition is not a comforting book, but it is a necessary one. Its relevance only deepens with time.
Reflections on the Human Condition is not a book to be read in one sitting, though its format tempts it. Each entry—no more than a few lines—is a standalone meditation, but together they form a stark and illuminating mosaic of what drives individuals and societies.
Hoffer explores:
• The deep hunger for belonging and meaning, especially through mass movements.
• The dangers of ideological purity and moral certainty.
• Power’s tendency to corrupt not just the powerful, but the obedient.
• The uneasy tension between personal freedom and collective identity.
• The contradictions that make civilization both magnificent and fragile.
His voice is blunt, unpretentious, often cynical, but always rooted in clear-eyed compassion for the human struggle. Hoffer doesn't speak from academia or elite circles. He speaks as a man who worked with his hands, watched the world with open eyes, and refused to be seduced by simple answers.
Like Krishnamurti, Hoffer challenges us to unmask the illusions we cling to—not to despair, but to better understand what it means to be human. Reflections on the Human Condition is not a comforting book, but it is a necessary one. Its relevance only deepens with time.
December 30, 2020
This is a collection of aphorisms taken from Hoffer’s published and unpublished writings in an attempt to pull together a book. Although there are a few gems among them, the majority are pedestrian especially when taken out of context from Hoffer’s writings, which today would be viewed, if not contextualized within the stereotypes and prejudices of the times at which they were written and originally published, as being politically incorrect. What stands out in this book is the editor’s attempts to eliminate any controversial or nonPC statements by Hoffer when the aphorisms were selected for inclusion in it. Also noteworthy are the editor’s efforts to understate Hoffer’s drift towards conservatism and conservative points of view in his later years after being viewed as more of a centrist or slightly liberal icon at the height of Hoffer’s fame when selecting and organizing the aphorisms.
Finally, the lack of citations of the source for each aphorism is unacceptable. A list should have been included to enable the reader to go to the source and read it, if one or more aphorisms created a desire on the part of the reader to do so.
Finally, the lack of citations of the source for each aphorism is unacceptable. A list should have been included to enable the reader to go to the source and read it, if one or more aphorisms created a desire on the part of the reader to do so.
November 21, 2022
This is a collection of 183 quotes and aphorisms from Hoffer’s work. Without the context of the original discussion, many of these come off as unsupported proclamations or pronouncements based on appearances or even reactionary biases. But there are a few keen observations and gems of wisdom that hold up on their own, sometimes just making intuitive observations of the human paradox without necessarily explaining them. Here are two of my favorites:
“People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”
“The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together. 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.”
“People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”
“The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together. 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.”
September 18, 2025
I have still been disappointed with anything Hoffer has written. Case in point:
"One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive - it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.”
Written in no less but could be written today.
The book is written in a series of short statement type aphorisms like the following:
We are least free when we try to be most free.
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
And more...
Great book and less than 100 pages that you will thank yourself for reading.
"One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive - it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.”
Written in no less but could be written today.
The book is written in a series of short statement type aphorisms like the following:
We are least free when we try to be most free.
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
And more...
Great book and less than 100 pages that you will thank yourself for reading.
March 28, 2025
This book is a collection of thoughtful observations about the human condition in its many facets. Some are particularly pithy. Some are profound. Many seem, if not cynical, focused on the darker side of our nature. There is not a great deal of uplift or hopefulness or optimism in these pages. Perhaps this book is best sampled in small doses rather than read straight through. -- I enjoyed it and found much of it valuable, but I am not certain that constitutes a ringing endorsement. YMMV, of course...
November 2, 2022
This is just a short book of Hoffer’s famous passages.
March 17, 2025
Lots of truths here but I don’t love the format which lacks context and therefore the opportunity to follow the thought process
February 3, 2009
Quite good.
March 31, 2017
Dive into the world of Eric Hoffer as he picks apart the human mind. While you may not agree with everything, it will make you question what we consider "normal."
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