FastSaying

When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant.


Eric Hoffer

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
ERIC HOFFER It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities
ERIC HOFFER When a man is at peace he is a man, when angry he is an animal.
AMIT KALANTRI When a man becomes a Christian, he becomes industrious, trustworthy and prosperous. Now, if that man...
JOHN WESLEY When a man becomes a Christian, he becomes industrious, trustworthy and prosperous. Now, if that man...
JOHN WESLEY A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when h...
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when h...
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT A man becomes as attractive as an attractive woman when he becomes successful and is publicly noted....
CURTIS JACKSON Eric loves Buffalo. He loves the fans. He loves living there. He's a Buffalo person. But should he g...
HARRY HENDERSON Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventua...
JEAN KERR If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he i...
WILL DURANT Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights, and crucifixions he has so far felt best on ea...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Man is a make-believe animal -- he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
WILLIAM HAZLITT Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.
WILLIAM HAZLITT Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part
WILLIAM HAZLITT Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind. -Eric Hoffer.
ERIC HOFFER When a man gets talking about himself, he seldom fails to be eloquent and often reaches the sublime.
JOSH BILLINGS In Brazil, a poor man goes to jail when he steals. When a rich man steals, he becomes a minister.
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA He's the boss, but he works for me.
IKENNA OJUKWU Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his g...
ARISTOTLE Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his...
ARISTOTLE This growth in the number, speed of formation, permanence, delicacy and complexity of associations p...
EDWARD THORNDIKE The rupee becomes cheap [of less value] and is that why man becomes expensive [valuable] and when th...
DADA BHAGWAN The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those scheme...
HENRY DAVID THOREAU I think a man becomes less than a man when he begins to compromise on what he believes is right.
MIKE SINGLETARY Bad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life he is leading, ...
PHILLIPS BROOKS A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than hi...
RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than hi...
RICHARD M. NIXON When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which...
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO Sad is the day for any man when he becomes absolutely satisfied with the life he is living, the thou...
PHILLIP BROOKS It's astonishing how important a man becomes when he dies.
YIDDISH PROVERB When a jockey retires, he just becomes another little man.
EDDIE ARCARO A bad man becomes worse when he apes a saint.
JONATHAN SWIFT A boy becomes man when he starts accepting his weakness.
PREM PRASAD SHARMA When a man's learning becomes stagnant he becomes an expert otherwise an intelligent!
THIRUMAN ARCHUNAN When a grown man reaches forty, we change him for an old one. He has completely disappeared. There&#...
JEAN GIRAUDOUX An electrician gets excited when he fixes a problem, but an engineer becomes more excited when he pr...
HAPPY MUDIMELI • When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventiv...
ROBERT HENRI A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist
RALPH WALDO EMERSON When a man is not amused, he feels an involuntary contempt for those who are.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON Dreadful will be the day when the world becomes contented, when one great universal satisfaction spr...
PHILLIPS BROOKS The ideal life is in our blood and never will be still. Sad will be the day for any man when he beco...
SOURCE UNKNOWN The ideal life is in our blood and never will be still. Sad will be the day for any man when he beco...
PHILLIPS BROOKS The ideal life is in our blood and never will be still. Sad will be the day for any man when he beco...
PHILLIP BROOKS A man becomes a Mahadev, only when he fights for good. A Mahadev is not born from his mother's womb....
AMISH TRIPATHI We are shopping Eric. Obviously, we would much rather have Eric released. But if we can work out a t...
GREG JOHNSON And when affliction touches a man, he calls on Us, whether lying on his side or sitting or standing;...
QURAN When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself,
he is very careful about how much ...
MILTON FRIEDMAN A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, SR. Sean's a better person when he's directing. He becomes a queen when he's an actor. And h...
ROBIN WRIGHT Man may penetrate the outer reaches of the universe, he may solve the very secret of eternity itself...
BRANCH RICKEY That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to be a...
WILLIAM MCKINLEY The feeling is one born of a too easy satisfaction of natural needs. The human animal, like others, ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL You're right,' said the corporal. 'It serves editors like that right. They only stir the people up. ...
JAROSLAV HAšEK How true is it that humanity refuses compromise during prosperity, and reaches out for arbitration w...
JEAN SASSON When does a man die? When he is hit by a bullet? No! When he suffers a disease? No! When he ate a so...
EIICHIRō ODA His courtesy was somewhat extravagant. He would write and thank people who wrote to thank him for we...
EVELYN WAUGH When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him...
C.S. LEWIS When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him...
C.S. LEWIS Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the d...
PHILLIPS BROOKS Take from a man his reputation for probity, and the more shrewd and clever he is, the more hated and...
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is pe...
ERIC HOFFER The Breath becomes a stone; the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a ...
CHRISTIAN NEVELL BOVEE When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself,he is very careful about how much he sp...
MILTON FRIEDMAN Eric Love is so good in the air, ... He's such an easy target (on corners). And when he gets up ther...
DANIEL LEWIS Inside every man there is... not an animal for animals maintain their sophistication... but chaos. C...
ELI BONNETT However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights D...
HANS KUNG Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve
ERICH FROMM Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.
ERICH FROMM Love is when you shed a tear and still want him, it's when he ignores you and you still love him, it...
FULTON OURSLER Love is when you shed a tear and still want him, it's when he ignores you and you still love him, it...
ROY CROFT In the long run a man becomes what he purposes, and gains for himself what he really desires
HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE Always when I see a man fond of praise I always think it is because he is an affectionate man cravin...
J. B. YEATS Always when I see a man fond of praise I always think it is because he is an affectionate man cra...
J. B. YEATS That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to ...
WILLIAM MCKINLEY No man demands what he desires; each man demands what he fancies he can get. Soon people forget what...
G.K. CHESTERTON He who thinks becomes clever throw the schools educational system Is foolish to think so for he is f...
ENRIQUE MIGUEL ALCALA SILVA For two thousand years or more man has been subjected to a systematic effort to transform him into a...
NORMAN O. BROWN Eric was delusional and he believed he was killing an alien.
DAVID GOLDBERG Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man whe...
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man whe...
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man whe...
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER Man only becomes independent of this physical world when he learns to consider the objects around hi...
RUDOLF STEINER I'm not an extravagant man. The fact that I can have a coffee out whenever I want still makes me...
PETER CAPALDI When a man is penalized for honesty he learns to lie.
CRISS JAMI The greatest tragedy is when man gives up what he wants most for what he wants now!
UNKNOWN Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he i...
C.S. LEWIS Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the di...
WILLIAM HAZLITT Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the diff...
WILLIAM HAZLITT Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the diff...
WILLIAM HAZLITT Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck by the differ...
WILLIAM HAZLITT The human animal originally came from out-of-doors. When spring begins to move in his bones, he just...
HERBERT HOOVER My favorite animal is the mule. He has more horse sense than a horse. He knows when to stop eating -...
HARRY S TRUMAN A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.
GIAN CARLO MENOTTI Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animal...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG A cynic is just a man who found out when he was ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's stil...
JAMES G. COZZENS A cynic is just a man who found out when he was ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's sti...
JAMES G. COZZENS A cynic is just a man who found out when he was ten that there wasn't any Santa Claus, and he's stil...
J. G. COZZENS

More Eric Hoffer

Children are the keys of paradise.
ERIC HOFFER It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
ERIC HOFFER Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and ...
ERIC HOFFER The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
ERIC HOFFER It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to le...
ERIC HOFFER Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us...
ERIC HOFFER Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
ERIC HOFFER The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.
ERIC HOFFER We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
ERIC HOFFER The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flowby t...
ERIC HOFFER The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When t...
ERIC HOFFER How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization!
ERIC HOFFER There is probably an element of malice in the readiness to overestimate people; we are laying up for...
ERIC HOFFER It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is as true of men as of dogs.
ERIC HOFFER A soul that is reluctant to share does not as a rule have much of its own. Miserliness is here a sym...
ERIC HOFFER There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
ERIC HOFFER Marriage has for women many equivalents of joining a mass movement. It offers them a new purpose in ...
ERIC HOFFER The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger ...
ERIC HOFFER It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer f...
ERIC HOFFER The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
ERIC HOFFER Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to...
ERIC HOFFER The greatest weariness comes from work not done.

ERIC HOFFER Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind. -Eric Hoffer.
ERIC HOFFER One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of...
ERIC HOFFER The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in w...
ERIC HOFFER Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.
ERIC HOFFER The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their ...
ERIC HOFFER The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as ...
ERIC HOFFER Laughter to begin with was probably glee at the misfortunes of others. The baring of the teeth in l...
ERIC HOFFER Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense, and sublime truths are equally potent in readying people for se...
ERIC HOFFER Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions ...
ERIC HOFFER The fact is that up to now a free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither ac...
ERIC HOFFER When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common...
ERIC HOFFER Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. The resentment of the weak does not spring...
ERIC HOFFER Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart. For we can...
ERIC HOFFER Freedom means freedom from forces and circumstances which would turn man into a thing, which would i...
ERIC HOFFER To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain e...
ERIC HOFFER Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
ERIC HOFFER It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites --opposi...
ERIC HOFFER There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmar...
ERIC HOFFER The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind.
ERIC HOFFER It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
ERIC HOFFER It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
ERIC HOFFER It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create someth...
ERIC HOFFER The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist...
ERIC HOFFER It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and presen...
ERIC HOFFER Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stu...
ERIC HOFFER An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anyth...
ERIC HOFFER Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled.
ERIC HOFFER No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need p...
ERIC HOFFER The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of t...
ERIC HOFFER In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find them...
ERIC HOFFER It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.
ERIC HOFFER Animals often strike us as passionate machines.
ERIC HOFFER The superficiality of the American is the result of his hustling. It needs leisure to think things o...
ERIC HOFFER The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim a...
ERIC HOFFER We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true; they ruin our dreams.
ERIC HOFFER Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy -- the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and...
ERIC HOFFER Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about o...
ERIC HOFFER The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine h...
ERIC HOFFER A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
ERIC HOFFER There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society's ripeness for a mass movement than the pre...
ERIC HOFFER The self-styled intellectual who is impotent with pen and ink hungers to write history with sword an...
ERIC HOFFER We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every...
ERIC HOFFER A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-...
ERIC HOFFER To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
ERIC HOFFER We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we hav...
ERIC HOFFER To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
ERIC HOFFER The well adjusted make poor prophets. A pleasant existence blinds us to the possibilities of drastic...
ERIC HOFFER Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
ERIC HOFFER The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil ...
ERIC HOFFER Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.
ERIC HOFFER Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but...
ERIC HOFFER We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
ERIC HOFFER They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspi...
ERIC HOFFER There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his ow...
ERIC HOFFER Facts are counterrevolutionary.
ERIC HOFFER It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opini...
ERIC HOFFER A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
ERIC HOFFER Man was nature's mistake --she neglected to finish him -- and she has never ceased paying for her mi...
ERIC HOFFER The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in th...
ERIC HOFFER It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
ERIC HOFFER You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
ERIC HOFFER Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain, whether of our worth or worthlessness, ...
ERIC HOFFER The birth of the new constitutes a crisis, and its mastery calls for a crude and simple cast of mind...
ERIC HOFFER To the old, the new is usually bad news.
ERIC HOFFER The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
ERIC HOFFER There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.
ERIC HOFFER Our present addiction to pollsters and forecasters is a symptom of our chronic uncertainty about the...
ERIC HOFFER To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as h...
ERIC HOFFER The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to ...
ERIC HOFFER There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
ERIC HOFFER The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altoge...
ERIC HOFFER Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
ERIC HOFFER Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses ...
ERIC HOFFER We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are ...
ERIC HOFFER Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-eviden...
ERIC HOFFER The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the b...
ERIC HOFFER The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do un...
ERIC HOFFER Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
ERIC HOFFER Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like ...
ERIC HOFFER Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing...
ERIC HOFFER Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
ERIC HOFFER What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?
ERIC HOFFER Intolerance is the Do Not Touch sign on something that cannot bear touching. We do not mind having o...
ERIC HOFFER It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is ...
ERIC HOFFER It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer fr...
ERIC HOFFER A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominate...
ERIC HOFFER There is a grandeur in the uniformity of the mass. When a fashion, a dance, a song, a slogan or a jo...
ERIC HOFFER It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and ...
ERIC HOFFER Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the...
ERIC HOFFER The pre-human creature from which man evolved was unlike any other living thing in its malicious vic...
ERIC HOFFER Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not or...
ERIC HOFFER It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigran...
ERIC HOFFER When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
ERIC HOFFER More significant than the fact that poets write abstrusely, painters paint abstractly, and composers...
ERIC HOFFER The necessary has never been man's top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the ...
ERIC HOFFER When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it.
ERIC HOFFER The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others but also with ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
ERIC HOFFER It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission an...
ERIC HOFFER The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
ERIC HOFFER Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of a...
ERIC HOFFER We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and con...
ERIC HOFFER A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
ERIC HOFFER There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being hi...
ERIC HOFFER All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action...
ERIC HOFFER We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.
ERIC HOFFER Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers a...
ERIC HOFFER There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
ERIC HOFFER Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. The crypto-businessman is the t...
ERIC HOFFER Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The ...
ERIC HOFFER Thus we find that people who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossibl...
ERIC HOFFER The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wis...
ERIC HOFFER We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: chan...
ERIC HOFFER When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and th...
ERIC HOFFER We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the ...
ERIC HOFFER Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions m...
ERIC HOFFER We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meani...
ERIC HOFFER The unpredictability inherent in human affairs is due largely to the fact that the by-products of a ...
ERIC HOFFER Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And w...
ERIC HOFFER To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of...
ERIC HOFFER Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.
ERIC HOFFER The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
ERIC HOFFER It is easier to love humanity than to love one's neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem e...
ERIC HOFFER Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others.
ERIC HOFFER Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that ...
ERIC HOFFER We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire cr...
ERIC HOFFER Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want ...
ERIC HOFFER Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to ...
ERIC HOFFER With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the ...
ERIC HOFFER A man by himself is in bad company.
ERIC HOFFER Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the p...
ERIC HOFFER Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
ERIC HOFFER It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.
ERIC HOFFER We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
ERIC HOFFER We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the fact that many i...
ERIC HOFFER A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prom...
ERIC HOFFER The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares no...
ERIC HOFFER The nature of society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow-by th...
ERIC HOFFER It is a sign of a creeping inner death when we no longer can praise the living.
ERIC HOFFER There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a...
ERIC HOFFER Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.
ERIC HOFFER Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possib...
ERIC HOFFER Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling o...
ERIC HOFFER Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.
ERIC HOFFER People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
ERIC HOFFER Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of m...
ERIC HOFFER It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
ERIC HOFFER In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equippe...
ERIC HOFFER The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitaria...
ERIC HOFFER Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength
ERIC HOFFER The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by d...
ERIC HOFFER The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.
ERIC HOFFER It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.
ERIC HOFFER One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of...
ERIC HOFFER There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were,...
ERIC HOFFER Our great weariness comes from work not done.
ERIC HOFFER It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opi...
ERIC HOFFER There is apparently no surer way of turning a thing into its opposite than by exaggerating it
ERIC HOFFER It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.
ERIC HOFFER To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.
ERIC HOFFER The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the ...
ERIC HOFFER The game of History is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of thr majority in th...
ERIC HOFFER Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that ...
ERIC HOFFER You dehumanize a man as much by returning him to nature - by making him one with rocks, vegetation, ...
ERIC HOFFER Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And w...
ERIC HOFFER Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragemen...
ERIC HOFFER The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in w...
ERIC HOFFER To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalizes - we are aware that what is happening to us has hap...
ERIC HOFFER It is easier to love humanity as a whole that to love one's neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we r...
ERIC HOFFER One might equate growing up with a mistrust of words. A mature person trusts his eyes more than his ...
ERIC HOFFER Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
ERIC HOFFER