Eric Hoffer Quotes - Page 17

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• A compilation of what outstanding people said or wrote at the age of 20 would make a collection of asinine pronouncements.

  Eric Hoffer

  People, Age, Youth

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• In human affairs every solution serves only to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. There are no final solutions.

  Eric Hoffer

  Finals, Problem, Affair

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.

  Eric Hoffer

  Depression, Literature, World

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• When we debunk a fanatical faith or prejudice, we do not strike at the root of fanaticism. We merely prevent its leaking out at a certain point, with the likely result that it will leak out at some other point.

  Eric Hoffer

  Roots, Prejudice, Results

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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• Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have.

  Eric Hoffer

  Want, Substitutes, Pursue

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutionsto cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

  Eric Hoffer

  Faith, Cutting, Power

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  25 Copy quote

• Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul.

  Eric Hoffer

  Inspirational, Compassion, Soul

  Eric Hoffer (1977). “In our time”, McNally & Loftin Publishers

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• Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, we are almost impervious to fear. Thus a feeling of utter unworthiness can be a source of courage.

  Eric Hoffer

  Courage, Fear, Feelings

  18 Copy quote

• Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder.

  Eric Hoffer

  Sight, Answers, Literature

  8 Copy quote

• The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.

  Eric Hoffer

  Feelings, Opiates, Poison

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome.

  Eric Hoffer

  Ideas, Overcoming, Links

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• Give people pride and they'll live on bread and water, bless their exploiters, and even die for them. Self-surrender is a transaction of barter: we surrender our sense of human dignity, our judgement, or moral and aesthetic sense for pride. If there is pride in being free, we are ready to die for liberty. If there is pride to be derived from an identification with a leader, we grovel in the dust before a Napoléon, Hitler or Stalin and are ready to die for him. If there is a distinction in suffering we search for martyrdom as for hidden treasure.

  Eric Hoffer

  Pride, Self, Dust

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• It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.

  Eric Hoffer

  People, Being Positive, Atheism

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• Unpredictability, too, can become monotonous.

  Eric Hoffer

  Literature, Unpredictability, Monotonous

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• 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

  Nature, Ambition, Tilt

  "The Temper of Our Time". Book by Eric Hoffer, p. 104, 1967.

  55 Copy quote

• Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.

  Eric Hoffer

  Echoes, World, Quarrels

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

  4 Copy quote

• More significant than the fact that poets write abstrusely, painters paint abstractly, and composers compose unintelligible music is that people should admire what they cannot understand; indeed, admire that which has no meaning or principle.

  Eric Hoffer

  Pain, Writing, People

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• Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life.

  Eric Hoffer

  Wise, Wisdom, Pride

  Eric Hoffer (1979). “Before the Sabbath”, Harpercollins

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• Some people have no original ideas because they do not think well enough of themselves to consider their ideas worth noticing and developing.

  Eric Hoffer

  Thinking, Ideas, People

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

  Eric Hoffer

  Country, Rebellious, Environment

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• People in a hurry cannot think, cannot grow, nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility.

  Eric Hoffer

  Thinking, People, Decay

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society.

  Eric Hoffer

  Loyalty, Individual, Believer

  Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

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• In products of the human mind, simplicity marks the end of a process of refining, while complexity marks a primitive stage. Michelangelo 's definition of art as the purgation of superfluities suggests that the creative effort consists largely in the elimination of that which complicates and confuses a pattern.

  Eric Hoffer

  Art, Simplicity, Effort

  "Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

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• The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.

  Eric Hoffer

  Humility, Men, Self

  Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.14, Harper Collins

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• Nature attains perfection, but man never does.

  Eric Hoffer

  Nature, Men, Perfection

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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