150 Quotes by Eric Hoffer
Eric Hoffer was an American writer and philosopher known for his insightful reflections on mass movements, human behavior, and the dynamics of social change. His best-known work, "The True Believer," explores the psychology of fanaticism and the commonalities among various ideological and religious movements.
Hoffer's writing delves into the psychological and sociological underpinnings of why individuals become part of mass movements and what drives them to extreme beliefs and actions. His ability to analyze complex social phenomena and distill them into accessible and thought-provoking prose has made his work a valuable resource for understanding the dynamics of society and the psychology of human behavior.
Eric Hoffer Quotes
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves. (Meaning)
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul. (Quote Meaning)
Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible. (Meaning)
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities. (Quote Meaning)
Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are. (Meaning)
In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. (Quote Meaning)
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. (Meaning)
It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action. (Quote Meaning)
The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure. (Meaning)
We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves. (Quote Meaning)
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings. (Meaning)
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
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.
No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are. (Quote Meaning)
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. (Meaning)
Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
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.
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents. (Quote Meaning)
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength. (Meaning)
A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are. (Quote Meaning)
To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little. If you have too little confidence, you will think you can't learn. If you have too much, you will think you don't have to learn.
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.
Learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.
Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.
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.
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. (Meaning)
One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.
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.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.
In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.
The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. (Quote Meaning)
An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them. (Meaning)
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. (Quote Meaning)
The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.
The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. In an affluent society, the alienated who clamor for power are largely untalented people who cannot make use of the unprecedented opportunities for self-realization, and cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self.
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness. (Meaning)
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about.
The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.
To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief from the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.
Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.
The real "haves" are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real "have nots" are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor. (Quote Meaning)
Children are the keys of paradise.
What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.
It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
Far more critical than what we know or what we don't know is what we don't want to know.
Rudeness is the weak man's limitation of strength. (Meaning)
The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a "have" type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a "have not" type of self.
You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy. (Quote Meaning)
A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.
It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power. (Meaning)
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.
The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
Our present addiction to pollsters and forecasters is a symptom of our chronic uncertainty about the future... We watch our experts read the entrails of statistical tables and graphs the way the ancients watched their soothsayers read the entrails of a chicken.
Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.
Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence.
When watching men of power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they know it or not, their main purpose is the elimination or neutralization of the independent individual- the independent voter, consumer, worker, owner, thinker- and that every device they employ aims at turning men into a manipulable animated instrument which is Aristotle's definition of a slave.
Rudeness luxuriates in the absence of self-respect.
It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.
We see through others only when we see through ourselves. (Quote Meaning)
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.
Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat; that they are chosen when they are shunned.
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
We usually see only the things we are looking for- so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life.
It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.
It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.
The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.
Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.
We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.
It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.
Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.
The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.
We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.
The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.
A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. It not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give their allegiance to him who offers them a grievance.
To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible. (Meaning)
Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites-opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity-where energies flow smoothly in one direction-there will be much doing but no music.
A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas.
The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.
Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense, and sublime truths are equally potent in readying people for self-sacrifice if they are accepted as the sole, eternal truth
How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.
Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.
Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.
The ratio between supervisory and producing personnel is always highest where the intellectuals are in power. In a Communist country it takes half the population to supervise the other half.
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.
We cannot hate those who we despise.
Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or rather the rejection of the self. Dedication in the obverse side of self-rejection. Man alone is a religious animal because, as Montaigne points out, it is a malady confined to man, and not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves.
The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
No totalitarian censor can approach the implacability of the censor who controls the line of communication between the outer world and our consciousness. Nothing is allowed to reach us which might weaken our confidence and lower our morale. To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth.
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.
One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.
The education explosion is producing a vast number of people who want to live significant, important lives but lack the ability to satisfy this craving for importance by individual achievement. The country is being swamped with nobodies who want to be somebodies.
Ours is a golden age of minorities. At no time in the past have dissident minorities felt so much at home and had so much room to throw their weight around. They speak and act as if they were "the people," and what they abominate most is the dissent of the majority.
There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
The desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection- real or imagined- by them.
Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults.
Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.
It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
Men of thought seldom work well together, whereas between men of action there is usually an easy camaraderie.
Communists are frustrated capitalists.
Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.
Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.
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.
When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom — freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.
The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.
Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own. Whether it is our own meaningless self we are upholding, or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith.
The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion. According to Renan, "The day after that on which the world should no longer believe in God, atheists would be the wretchedest of all men."
Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.
Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.
Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.
The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led.
A multitude of words is probably the most formidable means of blurring and obscuring thought. There is no thought, however momentous, that cannot be expressed lucidly in 200 words.
Take man's most fantastic invention- God. Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it.
The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto.
To find the cause of our ills in something outside ourselves, something specific that can be spotted and eliminated, is a diagnosis that cannot fail to appeal. To say that the cause of our troubles is not in us but in the Jews , and pass immediately to the extermination of the Jews, is a prescription likely to find a wide acceptance.
― Eric Hoffer Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
