Gordon

“Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, ‘to be free from freedom.’ It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“A nation's preoccupation with history is not infrequently an effort to obtain a passport for the future. Often it is a forged passport.”
― Eric Hoffer

“I can do no better than quote Montaigne: “All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats — we know it not.”
― Eric Hoffer