There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society's ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom. In most all the descriptions of the periods preceding the rise of mass movements there is reference to vast ennui; and in their earliest stages mass movements are more likely to find sympathizers and support among the bored than among the exploited and oppressed. To a deliberate fomenter of mass upheavals, the report that people are bored stiff should be at least as encouraging as that they are suffering from intolerable economic or political abuses. When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. The consciousness of a barren, meaningless existence is the main fountainhead of boredom. People who are not conscious of their individual separatedness, as is the case with those who are members or a compact tribe, church, party, etcetera, are not accessible to boredom. The differentiated individual is free of boredom only when he is engaged either in creative work or some absorbing occupation or when he is wholly engrossed in the struggle for existence. Pleasure-chasing and dissipation are ineffective palliatives. Where people live autonomous lives and are not badly off, yet are without abilities or opportunities for creative work or useful action, there is no telling to what desperate and fantastic shifts they might resort in order to give meaning and purpose to their lives.
Eric Hoffer
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you... C. JOYBELL C. When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. ERIC HOFFER Idle people are often bored and bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel. It is not accident... RENATA ADLER Life is not a game. Still, in this life, we choose the games we live to play. J.R. RIM The fear of God is the only cure for the fear of people. CRAIG GROESCHEL The battle is not physical, it is spiritual and your mind is the battleground. Keep your mind pure a... JEANETTE CORON Orion is above the horizon now, and near it Jupiter, brighter than it will ever be ... But i expect ... THOMAS HARRIS Food Allergies Are Not Due to Food, Rather Are Due to the Constant Contamination of That Food That Y... THEHEALTHFOODGURU 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... 2. Overcommitment and time pressure are the greatest destroyers of marriages. It takes time to devel... JAMES C. DOBSON There is a vast world of work out there in this country, where at least 111 million people are emplo... RICHARD NELSON BOLLES What will make you a star is in you SOTONYE ANGA Take me to the height where success would seek my help to succeed! I ARE You often love someone not for what they are, but for what you are when you are with them. JEFFREY FRY A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one--
And those who live ... ROBERT BROWNING I feel strongly that Christians have a scriptural mandate to love and care for all the people of the... JAMES C. DOBSON Everyone is the Umbrella Man and he is everyone. Every cough, sneeze, smile and wave means both ever... CRAIG CLEVENGER Judgment refers to a sound mind. When there is no sound mind in a society, people in that society do... SUNDAY ADELAJA I thank God for schools that are serious about the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are vital to perpetu... JAMES C. DOBSON In a day and age where it seems like women want to be with unstable, psychotic, manipulative freaks;... C. JOYBELL C. How can you tell when the devil is lying? His lips are moving. CRAIG GROESCHEL A tiny little baby!' says Tam. 'People look at me like I'm an animal. People who don't know me judge... JON RONSON The Biggest Threat to our Democracy, Freedoms and Future is Leadership that fosters and Appeases the... MICHAEL HARRIS So, tomorrow, I'm leaving. And I'm not going to let that happen again with anyone else. I'm going to... STEPHEN CHBOSKY (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes... JEAN SASSON The only deadly disease I have seen that is causing great harm and massacre latently yet the world h... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH That human life must be some kind of mistake is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that m... ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER The path of compassion does not obligate you to love people regardless of how they act or who they a... SANAYA ROMAN Wake up to a brand new day and realize why you woke up to meet the day! Live to the end of another d... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH His life seemed like a deck of cards, and in the midst of all those two’s and three’s someone ha... TEKOA MANNING I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib... C. JOYBELL C. We all are wearing many hundred glasses of different colors. Therefore, everyone sees the world in d... MUDITHA CHAMPIKA The love you get, is equal to the love you give. BEN OAK I'm fucking the grave, I thought, I'm bringing the dead back to life... CHARLES BUKOWSKI Clay in the hands of a good potter suffers so many good turns, but in the end, we see its real and t... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Beauty is the light within. Only when you see the light within yourself will others see it in you. F. JOHNSON That you did something bad is not enough to make you a bad person SOTONYE ANGA The unfortunate thing is that, sometimes, we slip, but, fortunately, consciously or unconsciously, w... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH 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. May I never neither turn left nor turn right in my journey of life, but may I go straight to Christ ... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH It's not who you are, but what you're made of. It's not where you come from, but where you're going ... CAREW PAPRITZ Once we recognize the fact that every individual is a treasury of hidden and unsuspected qualities, ... CHARLES H. PERCY Most people have some appreciation of mathematics, just as most people can enjoy a pleasant tune; an... G.H. HARDY You are amazing person with unique talents. Have faith in your abilities. LAILAH GIFTY AKITA Nicolas Cage is the best for taking the role of character Joker. He is pretty damn good at jokes! DEYTH BANGER Ghettos have their own characteristics and consequences : be they physical. social, intellectua... TARIQ RAMADAN Capitalism requires individual responsibility and accountability. People are seen as atomized units ... BEN SHAPIRO Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only r... ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER There is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own good. There are only... ROBERT NOZICK Followers Everywhere To start with; Facebook : 10K followers !! Instagr... SUJISH KANDAMPULLY The secret of my success is my hairspray. RICHARD GERE Love is blind, and a deaf-mute too. PATRICK ROTHFUSS Once again, we are reminded that awakening, or enlightenment is not the property of Buddhism, any mo... JEAN-YVES LELOUP How should I know?" said Alice, surprised at her own courage. "It's no business of mine." The Q... LEWIS CARROLL Today is about the now, the moment you live in, so do now what you want to do SOTONYE ANGA Every orchid or rose or lizard or snake is the work of a dedicated and skilled breeder. There are th... FREEMAN DYSON ...when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advan... ERIC HOFFER A couple of customers interrupted [...] who wanted to know if we had some YA book about ants and ali... SHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSON The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal... ALDOUS HUXLEY That the native does not like the tourist is not hard to explain. For every native of every place is... JAMAICA KINCAID 26. Don’t marry someone with intolerable characteristics in the hopes of changing him or her. If y... JAMES C. DOBSON Anyways, that very same night there was a fight in the casino on B Deck. Some of the passengers got ... CHRISTINA ENGELA Clearly, unless the Lord chooses to explain Himself to us, which He does not often do, His motivatio... JAMES C. DOBSON We all are wearing many hundred glasses of different colors. So, everyone see the world in different... MUDITHA CHAMPIKA There are many who find the burdens, the anxiety, and the isolation of an individual existence unbea... ERIC HOFFER 32. Before you criticize your parents for their failures and mistakes, ask yourself: “Will I reall... JAMES C. DOBSON You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part. HENRY JAMES HELPED are those who are content to be themselves; they will never lack mystery in their lives and t... ALICE WALKER Mother Superior jump the gun... -The Beatles, Happiness is a Warm Gun LAUREN MYRACLE There are a lot of singers who cannot sing to save their lives. We have to accept it, but thank God ... SONU NIGAM There are types of people who want to have leverage over other people's lives. For no other reason t... C. JOYBELL C. And as you come to know Him, you're becoming like Him. The more you are like Him, the more different... CRAIG GROESCHEL For in all the world there are no people so piteous and forlorn as those who are forced to eat the b... DOROTHY DIX There are some people about whom it is difficult to say anything which would describe them immediate... FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY There are people everywhere who form a Forth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ... JAN MORRIS Thoroughly selfish individuals can be entirely happy. They will be unlikely to find life very meanin... JAMES CASTLETON, MD, MENDING OF A BROKEN HEART We are not against unionization. There are tens of thousands of people who make up the family of hot... JOE MCINERNEY In the journey of life, certain paths may seem to be leading nowhere because of a mountain or hill o... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH In cheap years, it is pretended, workmen are generally more idle, and in dear ones more industrious ... ADAM SMITH Then, when I'm in these relationships with people who are also creative, or creative in their ow... LADY GAGA Among the enduring truths I keep bumping into when there is the luxury of time to get to know people... KEN AULETTA Sometimes people think they are looking for the meaning of life, when really they are looking for an... WENDY MASS A great future starts with what you can see SOTONYE ANGA There are those of us who learn to live completely in the moment. For such people the Past vanishes ... SALMAN RUSHDIE I wish I was home", She said miserably. She tried so hard to be brave, to be fierce as a... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Life is not a cakewalk for anyone. It's is indeed a challange for serious people. With a view to sur... CHANDRABABU V.S. The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are th... JOHN ADAMS There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they? Those who cannot be friends. It is not the ... WILLIAM HAZLITT People who love only once in their lives are shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their... OSCAR WILDE A lot of young people feel that they are not part of society, they do not have access to land, educa... EDWARD WINTER What matters is that there is somewhere for those who are troubled, threatened or afraid to turn to ... LORETTA LYNCH Feast of Edward the Confessor, 1066 Our wills are not ours to be crushed and broken; they are ou... HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE God wants to save us in a people. He does not want to save us in isolation. And so today's church mo... OSCAR A. ROMERO The story goes as the line follow... alone... loony.... ... That's what's happening.... DEYTH BANGER Most of the world is either asleep or dead. The religious people are, for the most part, asleep. The... THOMAS MERTON For actors and writers who are being forced to shoehorn products into their work -- whether they fit... PATRIC VERRONE The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They ar... HENRY DAVID THOREAU There is something like a switch in us that kills the individual in favor of the collective when peo... NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB When most people in the West think about Africa, is their first thought about the game reserves and ... DJIMON HOUNSOU
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 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 We feel free when we escape -- even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire. ERIC HOFFER