Quotes by Hoffer, Eric

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

Hoffer, Eric on passion
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"That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them."

Hoffer, Eric on persecution   

"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
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"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."

Hoffer, Eric on power   

"Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence. They hate not wickedness but weakness. When it is in their power to do so, the weak destroy weakness wherever they see it."

Hoffer, Eric on power   

"The unpredictability inherent in human affairs is due largely to the fact that the by-products of a human process are more fateful than the product."

Hoffer, Eric on prediction   

"Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor."

Hoffer, Eric on prejudice   

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

Hoffer, Eric on propaganda
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"We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails."

Hoffer, Eric on protest   

"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
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"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
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"To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life."

Hoffer, Eric on resentment   

"The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the front men with insatiable appetites for action, power and all that the world has to offer."

Hoffer, Eric on evolution   

"We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution."

Hoffer, Eric on evolution
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"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."

Hoffer, Eric on sacrifice   

"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."

Hoffer, Eric on salvation   

"Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident."

Hoffer, Eric on science   

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

Hoffer, Eric on self-esteem
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"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."

Hoffer, Eric on self-esteem
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"Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled."

Hoffer, Eric on self-image   

"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
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them."

Hoffer, Eric on self-sabotage
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"Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners."

Hoffer, Eric on sin   

"A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion."

Hoffer, Eric on socializing and socialism   

"Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives."

Hoffer, Eric on society   

"With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves."

Hoffer, Eric on solitude   

"A man by himself is in bad company."

Hoffer, Eric on solitude   

"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."

Hoffer, Eric on space   

"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
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"One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action --the ability to pass directly from thought to action."

Hoffer, Eric on action   

"Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat."

Hoffer, Eric on action   

"The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome. De Tocqueville points out that it is at times when passions start to govern human affairs that ideas are most obviously translated into political action. The translation of ideas into action is usually in the hands of people least likely to follow rational motives. Hence, it is that action is often the nemesis of ideas, and sometimes of the men who formulate them. One of the marks of the truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action the ability to pass directly from thought to action."

Hoffer, Eric on action   

"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
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"There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper."

Hoffer, Eric on brotherhood   

"Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. The crypto-businessman is the true revolutionary in a Communist country."

Hoffer, Eric on capitalism