"It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men."

Hoffer, Eric on malice   

"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."

Hoffer, Eric on music   

"The necessary has never been man's top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, man's greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities."

Hoffer, Eric on necessity   

"It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents."

Hoffer, Eric on opportunity   

"There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive."

Hoffer, Eric on passion
3 fans of this quote   

"The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders."

Hoffer, Eric on persuasion   

"It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities and talents."

Hoffer, Eric on plays   

"The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of turns, achievements, disappointments, surprises, and crises is a life full of landmarks. The empty life has even its few details blurred, and cannot be remembered with certainty."

Hoffer, Eric on autobiography
3 fans of this quote   

"Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves."

Hoffer, Eric on propaganda
7 fans of this quote   

"We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for."

Hoffer, Eric on purpose
3 fans of this quote   

"To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance."

Hoffer, Eric on religion
5 fans of this quote   

"Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem."

Hoffer, Eric on self-esteem
6 fans of this quote   

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."

Hoffer, Eric on self-esteem
4 fans of this quote   

"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."

Hoffer, Eric on self-image
3 fans of this quote   

"Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners."

Hoffer, Eric on sin   

"Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story -- a story that is basically without meaning or pattern."

Hoffer, Eric on story and story-telling   

"An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head."

Hoffer, Eric on stupidity
3 fans of this quote   

"We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about."

Hoffer, Eric on bigotry   

"When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths."

Hoffer, Eric on bigotry   

"When people are bored it is primarily with themselves."

Hoffer, Eric on bores and boredom
9 fans of this quote   

"To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are."

Hoffer, Eric on change
15 fans of this quote   

"There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet."

Hoffer, Eric on chastity   

"We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it."

Hoffer, Eric on talkativeness
4 fans of this quote   

"Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults."

Hoffer, Eric on adolescence
4 fans of this quote   

"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."

Hoffer, Eric on credulity   

"How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty."

Hoffer, Eric on death   

"We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us. "

Hoffer, Eric on uncategorised   

"Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of the time, at peril of being judged not to have lived."

Holmes Jr., Oliver Wendell on life   

"For I say unto you in all sadness of conviction that to think great thoughts you must be heroes as well as idealists. Only when you have worked alone -- when you have felt around you are a black gulf of solitude more isolating than that which surrounds the dying man, and in hope and despair have trusted to your own unshaken will -- then only can you gain the secret isolated joy of the thinker, who knows that a hundred years after he is dead and forgotten men who have never heard of him will be moving to the measure of his thought -- the subtle rapture of postponed power, which the world knows not because it has no external trappings, but which to his prophetic vision is more real than that which commands an army. And if this joy should not be yours, still it is only thus you can know that you have done what lay in you to do -- can say that you have lived, and be ready for the end."

Holmes Jr., Oliver Wendell on purpose   

"The riders in a race do not stop when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voices of friends and say to oneself, The work is done."

Holmes Jr., Oliver Wendell on vision   

"The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books."

Holmes, Oliver Wendell on advice
3 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"But curb thou the high spirit in thy breast, for gentle ways are best, and keep aloof from sharp contentions."

Homer on argument
4 fans of this quote   

"The persuasion of a friend is a strong thing."

Homer on persuasion   

"Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs, Silence that spoke and eloquence of eyes."

Homer on speakers and speaking   

"When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things -- not the great occasions -- that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness."

Hope, Bob on happiness
4 fans of this quote   

"Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant."

Horace on adversity
8 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Whatever advice you give, be short."

Horace on advice
5 fans of this quote   

"A good scare is worth more than good advice."

Horace on advice
8 fans of this quote   

"If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself."

Horace on emotions
3 fans of this quote   

"Who then is free? The one who wisely is lord of themselves, who neither poverty, death or captivity terrify, who is strong to resist his appetites and shun honors, and is complete in themselves smooth and round like a globe."

Horace on freedom
3 fans of this quote