100 Best Eric Hoffer Quotes From The American Moral and Social Philosopher
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Eric Hoffer was one of the most influential social philosophers of the 20th century in America.
A prolific writer, Eric Hoffer wrote 10 books. Amongst them, it is universally acknowledged that 'True Believer' is his greatest literary work.
Eric Hoffer often worked and analyzed mass movements and that was his primary topic in 'True Believer'. So, without much delay let us scroll down and read some of the Eric Hoffer quotes.
For more quotes, take a look at Michel Foucault quotes and Kant quotes.
Famous Eric Hoffer Quotes
Here are some of the well-known quotes from Eric Hoffer.
1. "The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together."
- Eric Hoffer.
2. "It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches."
- Eric Hoffer, The New York Times interview, 1969.
3. "...Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power."
- Eric Hoffer, 'Reflections On The Human Condition'.
4. "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."
- Eric Hoffer.
5. "It is a truism that many who join a rising revolutionary movement are attracted by the prospect of sudden and spectacular change in their conditions of life"
- Eric Hoffer.
6. "The best education will not immunize a person against corruption by power."
- Eric Hoffer.
7. "When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world."
- Eric Hoffer.
8. "In the past, religious movements were the conspicuous vehicles of change. "
- Eric Hoffer.
9. "The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."
- Eric Hoffer.
10. "We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire."
- Eric Hoffer.
11. "The Renaissance was a time of mercenary soldiers, ours is a time of mercenary labor."
- Eric Hoffer.
12. "I am more and more convinced that taking life over-seriously is a frivolous thing."
- Eric Hoffer.
13. The greatest weariness comes from work not done."
- Eric Hoffer.
14. "To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible."
― Eric Hoffer
- Eric Hoffer.
15. "The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter."
- Eric Hoffer.
16. "Anger is the prelude to courage."
- Eric Hoffer.
17. "Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America..."
- Eric Hoffer.
18. "It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate."
- Eric Hoffer.
19. "The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."
- Eric Hoffer.
20. "Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment."
- Eric Hoffer, The New York Times interview, 1969.
21. "What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds."
- Eric Hoffer.
22. "...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"
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
23. "The best education does not automatically make people compassionate."
- Eric Hoffer.
24. "Old age equalizes—we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time."
- Eric Hoffer.
25. "The central task of education is to implant a will and a facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people."
- Eric Hoffer.
26. "Ours is a golden age of minorities."
- Eric Hoffer.
27. "In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future."
- Eric Hoffer.
28. "Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation."
- Eric Hoffer.
29. "People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them."
- Eric Hoffer.
30. "The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft."
- Eric Hoffer.
Eric Hoffer 'True Believer' Quotes
'The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements' was the book that thrust Eric Hoffer into the spotlight. Here are some of the quotes from 'The True Believer'.
31. “Though the desire for change is not infrequently a superficial motive, it is yet worth finding out whether a probing of this desire might not shed some light on the inner working of mass movements. ”
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
32. "All active mass movement(s) strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
33. "Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
34. "Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
35. "A movement is pioneered by men of words, materialized by fanatics and consolidated by men of action."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
36. "There is in us a tendency to locate the shaping forces of our existence outside ourselves"
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
37. "Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
38. "The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
39. "We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
40. "It is understandable that those who fail should incline to blame the world for their failure."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
41. "The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
42. "Discontent by itself does not invariably create a desire for change."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
43. "Glory is largely a theatrical concept."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
44. "People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
45. "For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change,
they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
46. "Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
47. "It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
48. "The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
49. "Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
50. "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."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The True Believer'.
Eric Hoffer Book Quotes From ‘The Passionate State Of Mind’
Scroll down to take a look at some Eric Hoffer quotes and sayings from his other celebrated book.
51. "Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
52. "When people are free to do as we please, they usually imitate each other."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
53. "The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
54. "The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
55. "When it is their power to do so, the weak destroy weakness wherever they see it."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
56. "Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
57. "It has been often said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
58. "No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
59. "Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
60. "...Passionate intensity can serve as a substitute for the confidence born of proficiency and the possession of power."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
61. "A soul that knows itself is opaque..."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
62. "The miser, health addict, glory chaser and their like are not far behind in the exercise of self-sacrifice."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
63. "To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
64. "To most of us, nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
65. "It is strange how the moment we have reason to be dissatisfied with ourselves we are set upon by a pack of insistent clamorous desires.
66. "Lack of self-awareness renders us transparent."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
67. "We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
68. "Every intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are"
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
69. "It is startling to realize that we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-renunciation."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
70. "To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
71. "There is always a chance that the perfect society might be a stagnant society."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
72. "The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone; we are not alone when we imitate."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
73. "Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
74. "You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
75. "There is even in the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation."
- Eric Hoffer, 'The Passionate State Of Mind'.
More Eric Hoffer Quotes And Sayings
Take a look at some more curated Eric Hoffer quotes and sayings.
76. "You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy."
- Eric Hoffer.
77. "A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time."
- Eric Hoffer.
78. "Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice."
- Eric Hoffer.
79. "It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is as true of men as of dogs."
- Eric Hoffer.
80. "Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves."
- Eric Hoffer.
81. "The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness."
- Eric Hoffer.
82. "Where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless."
- Eric Hoffer.
83. "I like half-truths of a certain kind — they are interesting and they stimulate."
- Eric Hoffer.
84. "The passionate state of mind is often indicative of a lack of skill, talent or power"
- Eric Hoffer.
85. "The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity."
- Eric Hoffer.
86. "It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor."
- Eric Hoffer.
87. "Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains. "
- Eric Hoffer.
88. "It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others."
- Eric Hoffer.
89. "It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities."
- Erich Hoffer.
90. "Children are the keys of paradise."
- Eric Hoffer.
91. "This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight."
- Eric Hoffer.
92. "The times of drastic change are times of passion. "
- Eric Hoffer.
93. "Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good."
- Erich Hoffer.
94. "The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor."
- Eric Hoffer.
95. "An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish."
- Eric Hoffer.
96. "The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow -by the tilt of the social landscape."
- Eric Hoffer.
97. "Compassion is probably the only antitoxin of the soul."
- Eric Hoffer.
98. "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."
- Eric Hoffer.
99. "To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little."
- Eric Hoffer.
100. "Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind."
- Eric Hoffer.
Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Eric Hoffer quotes, then why not take a look at Ludwig Wittgenstein quotes and [Edward Burke quotes].
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Bachelor of Arts specializing in English, Master of Arts specializing in English
Rajnandini RoychoudhuryBachelor of Arts specializing in English, Master of Arts specializing in English
With a Master of Arts in English, Rajnandini has pursued her passion for the arts and has become an experienced content writer. She has worked with companies such as Writer's Zone and has had her writing skills recognized by publications such as The Telegraph. Rajnandini is also trilingual and enjoys various hobbies such as music, movies, travel, philanthropy, writing her blog, and reading classic British literature.
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