Eric Hoffer Quotes, Sayings, Remarks, Thoughts and Speeches
Eric Hoffer Quotes and Sayings
- 1
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 2
A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 3
A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 4
A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 5
A man by himself is in bad company.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 6
A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 7
Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 8
An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 9
Animals often strike us as passionate machines.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 10
Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 11
Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 12
Children are the keys of paradise.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 13
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 14
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 15
Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 16
Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 17
Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 18
Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 19
Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 20
Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 21
Facts are counterrevolutionary.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 22
Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 23
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 24
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 25
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 26
In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 27
It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 28
It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 29
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 30
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 31
It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 32
It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 33
It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 34
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 35
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 36
It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 37
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 38
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 39
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 40
It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 41
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 42
It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 43
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 44
Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 45
Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 46
Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 47
Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 48
Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 49
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 50
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 51
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 52
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 53
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 54
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 55
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 56
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 57
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 58
Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 59
Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 60
Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 61
Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 62
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 63
The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 64
The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 65
The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 66
The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 67
The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 68
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 69
The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 70
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 71
The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 72
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 73
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 74
The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 75
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 76
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 77
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 78
The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 79
The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 80
There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 81
There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 82
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 83
There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 84
There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 85
There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 86
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 87
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 88
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 89
To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 90
To the old, the new is usually bad news.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 91
Unpredictability, too, can become monotonous.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 92
We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 93
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 94
We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 95
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 96
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 97
We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true; they ruin our dreams.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 98
We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 99
We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 100
We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 101
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 102
We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 103
What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 104
When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 105
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 106
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 107
When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 108
Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 109
Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 110
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 111
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 112
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.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 113
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 114
You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
- 115
Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent.
Eric Hoffer | Refcard PDF ↑
