Gordon

“On the other hand, there is no more potent dwarfing of the present than by viewing it as a mere link between a glorious past and a glorious future. Thus, though a mass movement at first turns its back on the past, it eventually develops a vivid awareness, often specious, of a distant glorious past. Religious movements go back to the day of creation; social revolutions tell of a golden age when men were free, equal, and independent; nationalist movements revive or invent memories of past greatness.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves. [...] The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.”
― 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