“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.” (Eric Hoffer)
“We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.” (Eric Hoffer)
“Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting.” (Eric Hoffer)
“One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world’s problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive – it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.” (Eric Hoffer)
“It is thus with most of us; we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay. ” (Eric Hoffer)
“What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people’s faces as unfinished as their minds.” (Eric Hoffer)
“To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.” (Eric Hoffer)
“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.” (Eric Hoffer)
“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.” (Eric Hoffer)
“It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.” (Eric Hoffer)
“To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.” (Eric Hoffer)
“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.” (Eric Hoffer)
“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)
“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)
“Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.” (Eric Hoffer)
“It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.” (Eric Hoffer)
“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.” (Eric Hoffer)
“To believe that if we could have but this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness.” (Eric Hoffer)
“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)
“Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy – the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.” (Eric Hoffer)
“We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.” (Eric Hoffer)
“To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.” (Eric Hoffer)
“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)
