Emily > Emily's Quotes

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#1

“Scratch an intellectual, and you find a would-be aristocrat who loathes the sight, the sound and the smell of common folk.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

38 likes

#2

“There is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

26 likes

#3

“Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.”
― Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms

18 likes

#4

“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.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

28 likes

#5

“Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

24 likes

#6

“The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.”
― Eric Hoffer

14 likes

#7

“When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

11 likes

#8

“If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.”
― Eric Hoffer

tags: adolescence, teenage-angst, teenagers

12 likes

#9

“Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

9 likes

#10

“For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power. They must also have an extravagant conception of the prospects and the potentialities of the future. Finally, they must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking. Experience is a handicap.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

12 likes

#11

“The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.”
― Eric Hoffer

tags: anarchy, beaurocracy, freedom, government, libertarian, liberty, politics, socialism, statism, statists, voluntaryism, welfare-state

7 likes

#12

“If anything ail a man,” says Thoreau, “so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even … he forthwith sets about reforming—the world.”3”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

6 likes

#13

“It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power — power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors. They want to retaliate.”
― Eric Hoffer

6 likes

#14

“Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing. 104”
― Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition

4 likes

#15

“If anything ail a man,” says Thoreau, “so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even … he forthwith sets about reforming—the world.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

2 likes

#16

“There is even in the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-renunciation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser and their like are not far behind in the exercise of self-sacrifice. Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.”
― Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms

4 likes

#17

“Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.”
― Ambrose Bierce

88 likes

#18

“[The American President] has to take all sorts of abuse from liars and demagogues.… The people can never understand why the President does not use his supposedly great power to make ’em behave. Well, all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.”
― Harry S. Truman

55 likes

#19

“The main problem in any democracy is that crowd-pleasers are generally brainless swine who can go out on a stage & whup their supporters into an orgiastic frenzy—then go back to the office & sell every one of the poor bastards down the tube for a nickel apiece.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72

tags: democracy, politicians

89 likes

#20

“If politicians stopped meddling with things they don't understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.”
― Thomas Sowell

tags: politicians

109 likes

#21

“Trophy hunters are like politicians, they both like to pull the trigger from the comfort of a safe distance.”
― J Bartell, The 231 Club: My Ten Year Journey From Therapist to CIA Courier and Sanctioned Kills - A True Story

tags: cowards, politicians, trophy-hunters

28 likes

#22

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
-Thomas Jefferson”
― Thomas Jefferson

tags: barbarapostaskin, government, history, people, politicians, quote, reflectionsofliberty, theworldisonfire, thomas-jefferson, whatishappening

17 likes

#23

“The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever becoming one.”
"Don't vote. It just encourages them....”
― Billy Connolly

tags: humour, politicians

21 likes

#24

“Our leaders know we’re turning into a giant ghetto and they are taking every last hubcap they can get their hands on before the rest of us wake up and realize what’s happened.”
― Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

tags: politicians, thievery, united-states

34 likes

#25

“Political debate: when charlatans come together to discuss their principles.”
― Bauvard, Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic

22 likes

#26

“My job is to find the politicians and the presidents and the pompous people who are telling other people how to live, powerful, visible creatures and ... go at them.”
― Craig Ferguson

tags: politicians, presidents, talk-show-host

7 likes

#27

“[Y]ou possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing.”
― Aristophanes, The Knights

tags: administration, attributes, barter, character, demagoguery, government, greed, human-voice, language, marketplace, nature, politicians, selfishness, voice

45 likes

#28

“People are weary of politicians who make promises they are either unwilling or unable to keep. Society longs for statesmen but it gets politicians. Statesmen are leaders who uphold what is right regardless of the popularity of the position. Statesmen speak out to achieve good for their people, not to win votes. Statesmen promote the general good rather than regional or personal self-interest.”
― Henry T. Blackaby, Spiritual Leadership: Moving People on to God's Agenda

tags: politicians, statesmen

16 likes

#29

“The mistake our politicians so often make with these industry leaders is in thinking they are interested in, or respectful of, the power of government. All they want is to keep stealing. If you can offer them the government’s seal of approval on that, they’ll take it. But if you can’t, well, they’ll take that too.”
― Matt Taibbi, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

tags: government, politicians, thievery, united-states, wall-street

16 likes

#30

“If you do not want to be lied to, then you need to stop following politics.”
― Steven Magee

tags: follow, following, lie, lied, political, political-philosophy, political-science, politicians, politicians-logic, politics, politics-of-the-united-states, stop, want

13 likes

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