Authors:
  • This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. Our most persistent and spectacular efforts are concerned not with the preservation of what we are but with the building up of an imaginary conception of ourselves in the opinion of others. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter.

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