Eric Hoffer Quotes
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The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.
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Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled.
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Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
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A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
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With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
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It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men.
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We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
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The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
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Animals often strike us as passionate machines.
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It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.
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We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
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A man by himself is in bad company.
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To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
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We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.
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In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
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Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
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It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
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When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.
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There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
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Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
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It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
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Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
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The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
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Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.