FastSaying

The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.


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

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 The words you can’t find, you borrow.
We read to know we’re not alone. We read because w...
GABRIELLE ZEVIN I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made ...
RALPH WALDO EMERSON Stand for something. Make your life mean something. Start where you are with what you have. You are ...
GERMANY KENT Each of us views life through a different lens. What we think is colored by the baggage we carry, an...
LAURIE BUCHANAN, PHD It was pivotal in making you but you don't remember it. Or do you? Do we understand the events that ...
DOUGLAS COUPLAND You don't tell an astronaut what to do.
ATMOSPHERE In periods of rapid personal change, we pass through life as though we are spellcast. We speak in se...
DOUGLAS COUPLAND If we all look at life we think how nice, then we look at death and everybody goes oh you can say th...
GARY F EVANS... If you're confused about what to do,
it's a sign that your enemy is winning.
TOBA BETA If you love someone you must set them free like the wind and give them the respect they deserve.If y...
GARY F EVANS... So, tomorrow, I'm leaving. And I'm not going to let that happen again with anyone else. I'm going to...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what t...
ERIC HOFFER In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give and...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,--honorable alike in what we give and ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free, - honorable alike in what we give and...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN In every passing moment that is not appreciated time cannot give it back to you. So in moments of id...
GARY F EVANS... It's a lie to think that you are not good enough. It's a lie to think that you are not beautiful. It...
DISON ARNIBAL Focus on your work. Do what you're great at. Don't compare yourself to others and or waste time crit...
GERMANY KENT We both know... that soon everything is going to end...

...
This chat will be in the...
DEYTH BANGER Destiny consist in the moments that we experienced, and not in the choices we have to do.
DANIEL MELGAçO I am aware that everyone that exists has a story, and we all exist because that story is important f...
ARZELL Dae FATE NAYAE Nanagha Vandhuttoom Da, Sandy , Na Nata, London Lass,Russian Grapes, Ellorum Ippa Van...
SATHESH KUMAR M It is just an illusion of freedom. We are, perhaps, as free as a railway carriage.
VENUGOPAL GUPTA Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.
~WALT DISNEY We are actually disease-free in Vietnam for the moment. We're probably not virus-free, but what the ...
HANS TROEDSSON Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind. -Eric Hoffer.
ERIC HOFFER There are two freedoms; The false, where man is free to do what he likes; The true, where man is fre...
CHARLES KINGSLEY We must show that liberty is not merely one particular value but that it is the source and condition...
FRIEDRICH AUGUST HAYEK When you are not sure what to do, take action. You will quickly find out.
JEFFREY FRY How do you know if something is real? That’s easy. Does it change you? Does it form you? Does it g...
C. JOYBELL C. There are two freedoms -- the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is ...
CHARLES KINGSLEY There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is f...
CHARLES KINGSLEY What love is it, then, that has no need of words to call us? In whose image are we made, to take suc...
CHRISTIAN BOBIN You are what you are, and what you are is not me!
ANTHONY T. HINCKS Let us ask ourselves, 'What kind of people do we think we are?' And let us answer, 'Free...
RONALD REAGAN Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasi...
PLATO There are two freedoms--the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is...
CHARLES KINGSLEY Free. We are not free from bad experiences or mean people, but we are free on how to respond to thos...
JOHN B. BEJO A couple of customers interrupted [...] who wanted to know if we had some YA book about ants and ali...
SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON Same first name as a president and an obscure comic book character. Half-Jewish. Excellent grammar. ...
BECKY ALBERTALLI Air is approximately 21% oxygen, our brains feed off of oxygen. So basically we are all airheads.
ANDONI GARCIA Inspired By Beauty In Creation We Are One
DANIEL GILMAN Are shadows a shadowy reflection of the soul or is it a reflection of who we really are, or possibly...
GARY F EVANS... We are this fucking stick in the end...
DEYTH BANGER The true test of liberty is the right to test it, the right to question it, the right to speak to my...
GERRY SPENCE The American people are free to do exactly what they are told.
WARD CHURCHILL Don’t waste your time trying to impress others to satisfy their ego. do what you love & love what ...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA I Don't Like What I Do, I Love What I Do!
JOHN PETERS When I know what to do, everything is so easy.
LORRIN L. LEE Have the courage to do what you're not ready to do.
RICHIE NORTON Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.
EDWARD SNOWDEN People are attracted to who we are more than what we do.
LORRIN L. LEE You often love someone not for what they are, but for what you are when you are with them.
JEFFREY FRY We are far from perfect but willing to be different.
CRAIG GROESCHEL What we aspire to be is more than what we are yet less than what we are capable of.
DON WILLIAMS, JR What we aspire to be is more than what we are yet less than what we are capable of.
DON WILLIAMS JR We didn't want to put them on the line. We knew they were a good free throw shooting team. Their gua...
TOM ARMSTRONG What we want is not freedom but its appearances. It is for these simulacra that man has always striv...
E. M. CIORAN To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom
ANDRE GIDE What a free society offers to the individual is much more than what he would be able to do if only h...
F.A. HAYEK We basically said, 'Eric, what do we need to do here?'
JASON KING As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they ...
J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they ...
MARCEL PROUST Artists are paid in different currencies. Not just money, but time, freedom, ability to do what we l...
DREW BROPHY Your "Not To Do" list is also important.
MANI S. SIVASUBRAMANIAN We want our children to become who they are--- and a developed person is, above all, free. But freed...
GREGORY J. MILLMAN The road that connects our thoughts to the ears of others is our tongue. What travel on this road is...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH We get these lives for free. I didn't do anything to get this life, and no matter what the hards...
JUNOT DIAZ We may not get to choose how we die, but we can chose how we live.
The universe may for...
SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON Dreams are hopeful because they exist as pure possibility. Unlike memories, which are fossils, long ...
SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.
POPE JOHN PAUL II Our work was based in the village, so not many people had access to it, and it gave us an enormous s...
GRZEGORZ BRAL Don’t keep your greatness; exhibit it to the admiration of all but note however also to keep your ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not do we are told expressly.
JONATHAN SWIFT I do feel that federation, loose parallel processes, are less than we've got, less than we could...
ROWAN WILLIAMS Do you know in what conditions such video are made? Do you think I was free to say what I wanted? To...
GIULIANA SGRENA What we think about when we are free to think about what we will – that is what we are or will soo...
A.W. TOZER Sooner or later, what you do will speak
SOTONYE ANGA All men are created equal. It is what you do from there that makes the difference. We are all free a...
GLENN BECK In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in that we give and ...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN You are here to be free. There is no other way to be free than to embrace freedom within yourself.
TONY SAMARA No need to feel shame for what you are.
DEYTH BANGER you know what the best kind of organic certification would be? make an unannounced visit to a farm a...
MICHAEL POLLAN There is tonic in the things that men do not love to hear. Free speech is to a great people what the...
HENRY WARD BEECHER What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told expressly
JONATHAN SWIFT Free will is the cutting edge of Creation, don’t you see? The word spontaneity derives from the La...
TONY VIGORITO Empathy is a bridge. Our sufferings connect us. Let pain make you softer.
AKIROQ BROST Outside... we are just nobody... you could meet me outside... but it doesn't mean that I am DeYtH Ba...
DEYTH BANGER Come on... come on... I am waiting for answer...
...

Silence doesn't make it... bet...
DEYTH BANGER What, the glass is half-full instead of half-empty? Bullshit. What they don't tell you is that regar...
T.J. KLUNE We ask ourselves what Solidarity has brought us over the last 25 years. We see that we are free, but...
ANDRZEJ MIELCARZ And because God's love is uncoercive and treasures our freedom - if above all he wants us to love hi...
FREDERICK BUECHNER Wanting something badly even though it could hurt you," Bentley repeated. He looked up at the ceilin...
NELLIE CHRISTINE Daisy stared worriedly into his shadowed face. “What if you change your mind about me? What if you...
LISA KLEYPAS Men are free when they are in a living homeland, not when they are straying and breaking away. Men a...
D. H. (DAVID HERBERT) LAWRENCE We missed some free throws that are uncharacteristic of us. We are good free-throw shooting team. Ob...
STEW MORRILL Being able to do what you wish is the best thing in the world!
SHIRO AMANO The Christian is free from all other human beings. He does not have to live over against others, con...
JAY E. ADAMS Go back to bed, America, your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed Ameri...
BILL HICKS

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 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 We feel free when we escape -- even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.
ERIC HOFFER