Gordon > Gordon's Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.”
― 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

“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

“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

“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

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

“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting.”
― Eric Hoffer

“The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else--we are the busiest people in the world.”
― 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

“What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.”
― Eric Hoffer

“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day; we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.”
― Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms

“We feel free when we escape, even if it be from the frying pan into the fire.”
― Eric Hoffer

“You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.”
― Eric Hoffer

“There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.”
― Eric Hoffer

“The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.”
― Eric Hoffer

“The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.”
― Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms

“We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.”
― Eric Hoffer