When we are in competition with ourselves, and match our todays against our yesterdays, we derive encouragement from past misfortunes and blemishes. Moreover, the competition with ourselves leaves unimpaired our benevolence toward our fellow men.
Eric Hoffer
Related Everything passes by, and we are left with just our memories BEN OAK We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men. HERMAN MELVILLE The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill w... ERIC HOFFER We're continually striving to differentiate ourselves from the competition and this certificate will... GAYLAND PEDHIRNEY We call it a competition, but we're really just competing against ourselves. Our real goal is to be ... LYNN HARTMUTH Pursuing employment or climatic relief, we live in voluntary exile from our extended families and ou... JOHN THORN The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others. ERIC HOFFER Does our ferocity not derive from the fact that our instincts are all too interested in other people... E. M. CIORAN Our works, whatever they may be, derive from our incapacity to kill or to kill ourselves. EMILE M. CIORAN What is excellence? It is about going a little beyond what we expect from ourselves. Part of the nee... AZIM PREMJI We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the jour... EARL NIGHTINGALE Since we humans have the better brain, isn't it our responsibility to protect our fellow creatures f... JOY ADAMSON We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those... HERMAN MELVILLE We played a tight match with Stetson but we didn't hang our heads and get down on ourselves. Instead... NICK STUTSMAN When we think little of ourselves, we do little with ourselves. We must think bigger of ourselves to... BRANDON A. TREAN Our actions are guaranteed to affect others. Because we are not alone in this world, much of our lea... TAE YUN KIM Sometimes we fight who we are, struggling against ourselves and our natures. But we must learn to ac... HARLEY KING When the past gets its teeth into our daily life, it may get to grips with an astringent reality and... ERIK PEVERNAGIE When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit our lives are all that really belong to us. S... CESAR CHAVEZ Our lives are driven and channeled by our decisions, whatever situation we find ourselves in, we got... ROSE B MASHIGO It is lack of love for ourselves that inhibits our compassion toward others. If we make friends with... DALAI LAMA The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do un... ERIC HOFFER We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those... HERMAN MELVILLE In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. THURGOOD MARSHALL Basic Principles: 1. Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creati... JULIA CAMERON When we come together to play and be we are truly ourselves When we are truly ourselves it is wonder... BRAD COLBY There would be no need for love if perfection were possible. Love arises from our imperfection, from... EUGENE KENNEDY Last year, our only competition was Pasco. Against the other teams, we pretty much walked away with ... ASHLEY LEWIE We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves. TOM ROBBINS With our talent level, against an Edwardsville we'd have to play a near-perfect game to win. We fit ... MATT MASON [From our side] our relation to God is unrighteous. Secretly we are ourselves the masters in this re... KARL BARTH Sordid selfishness doth contract and narrow our benevolence, and cause us, like serpents, to infold ... SIR WALTER SCOTT We must master our egoism, and through this mastery, step outside ourselves and educate ourselves in... TARIQ RAMADAN We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge - and with good reason. We have never sought oursel... FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves. PATRICIA SAMPSON We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves. TOM ROBBINS Against Hume, Kant has found a more proper ground for humility: “True humility follows unavoidably... JEANINE GRENBERG [...]we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of... DIETRICH BONHOEFFER Of our conflicts with others we make rhetoric; of our conflicts with ourselves we make poetry. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves
And spend our flatteries to drink those men
Upon ... WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE When we touch the place in our lives where sexuality and spirituality come together, we touch our wh... JUDITH PLASKOW Another of our highly prized virtues is fidelity. We are immensely pleased with ourselves when we ar... IDA R. WYLIE Another of our highly prized virtues is fidelity. We are immensely pleased with ourselves when we ar... IDA ROSS WYLIE When we pity ourselves all we see is ourselves. When we have problems, all we see are our problems a... ANN MARIE AGUILAR People will ignore their misfortunes and their interests when they are in competition with their ple... PROVERB People will ignore their misfortunes and their interests when they are in competition with their ple... FRENCH PROVERB Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of... MARY ANTIN Where we desire to be informed 'tis good to contest with men
above ourselves; but to confirm and es... SIR THOMAS BROWNE We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the jour... EARL NIGHTINGALE We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged
in work we enjoy on the jour... EARL NIGHTINGALE Overall, I was pleased with our performance. The conditions were good and we went up against some pr... JENNIFER NANISTA When we have nothing to cling to as our own and cease thinking of ourselves as people who must defen... HENRI NOUWEN When we deny the EVIL within ourselves, we dehumanize ourselves, and we deprive ourselves not only o... J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER We are free falling backward through time, reincarnating ourselves from our past, reflecting the cha... LORIN MORGAN-RICHARDS In our frenzied attempts to catch up with life, we run right past it. Once we have run past it, what... CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Whatever we treasure for ourselves separates us from others; our possessions are our limitations. RABINDRANATH TAGORE We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the jour... EARL NIGHTINGALE We attribute to ourselves qualities that we do not possess because if we possessed them, our lives w... LAURA KNIGHT JADCZYK We don't always connect ourselves with our history. LINDA AIKEN We are all here to contribute our gifts toward something greater than ourselves, and will never be c... CHARLES EISENSTEIN We must believe in the power of education. We must respect just laws. We must love ourselves, our ol... ARTHUR ASHE We can imprison ourselves with our wants, wishes, and false dreams. KILROY J. OLDSTER Whites, like ourselves, belong to our country. They are compatriots, fellow citizens... we see them ... OLIVER TAMBO For our future, to have clean relations with our neighbors, we need to have a clear vision of our pa... SAKIB SOFTIC When we come from an authentic, genuine place in ourselves, our efforts to connect with people work ... MICHELLE TILLIS LEDERMAN In wartime we identify ourselves with the nation, and its interests are the interests of our primal ... GEORGE HERBERT MEAD Our memories are our own, and we cannot blame anything or anyone in the past for any pain dwelling t... MOTHER ANGELICA We were born to unite with our fellow men, and to join in community with the human race. CICERO Out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric. Out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry... WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric. Out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS When we come from an authentic, genuine place in ourselves, our efforts to connect with people work ... MICHELLE TILLIS LEDERMAN I know that it isn't just violence against women, it's how do we support ourselves and our f... PATRICIA IRELAND We can choose to humble ourselves by conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters, esteeming th... EZRA TAFT BENSON With our technology, I am convinced that we will be quite advantageous in cost competition. MAKOTO EBATA Life is not a test or a competition. We only compete with ourselves. CHLOE THURLOW We are so caught up in our media, in our jobs, in our gossip, and in our consuming that we genuinely... TINASHE "The best competition we can be in is with ourselves, we should strive each day to do better and be ... DENNIS BARTON When we teach ourselves and our children discipline, we are teaching them and ourselves how to suffe... M SCOTT PECK When we teach ourselves and our children discipline, we are teaching them and ourselves how to suffe... M. SCOTT PECK Yet the best determining factor of how comfortable we are with ourselves, is our ability to laugh at... WES ADAMSON The whole idea of a democracy is that we ourselves, the people, are supposed to make a path of our p... EUGENE JARECKI Most of us are at war with ourselves, are our own worst enemies. We expect a great deal of ourselves... ORISON SWETT MARDEN We all have a darkness within us, it stems from our past. When we can forgive ourselves and not worr... DANIEL GILMAN There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. Wh... JOHN LENNON When we aren't honest with ourselves about who we are and what we want, we allow other people and ci... CORTNEY S. WARREN How seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves THOMAS KEMPIS How seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves. THOMAS A KEMPIS On this earth our relationship among ourselves should be of uptmost importance than our relationship... DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) Culture is a symbolic veil with which we hide our animal nature from ourselves … and other animals... MOKOKOMA MOKHONOANA When we hide our failings from others, we seek to hide them from ourselves, and it is in the latter ... PIERRE NICOLE We'll be going up against more top-notch competition. We know we will have to be at our best to be c... JOE JAKUBICK When he gets the ball in his hands, good things are going to happen. It's tough to match his level o... BILLY DAVIS Basically, it's our defense. In the past two games, we weren't ourselves out there. JUSTIN DOELLMAN Economically, unless we rejoin the international community and make amends with the countries we iso... BILL SAIDI If we believe that competition is what makes the Silicon Valley and our economy great, we should wel... AHMAD BAHAI Our environment, including the physical body, reflect our inner state - what we are inwardly, our et... THOMAS VAZHAKUNNATHU We wound our modesty and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish the... WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE We had a lot of great energy to start the doubles and singles, and we created a lot of opportunities... GEORGE HUSACK we unwittingly project onto God our own attitudes and feelings toward ourselves... But we cannot ass... BRENNAN MANNING If our fellow men could be aware of our opinions about them, love, friendship, and devotion would be... EMILE M. CIORAN
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