We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for.
Eric Hoffer
Related Life ceases to be so oppressive: we are free to give our own lives meaning and purpose, free to rede... WALTER KAUFMANN The market is still waiting for HSBC results, which will have a big impact on the direction of the m... ANDREW TO Property shares had a technical rebound, but interest rate concerns will still affect properties unt... ANDREW TO Bank of China's results were quite good; double-digit growth can be taken as good results for a bank... ANDREW TO The index tried to challenge 18,000 but failed, so that triggered profit taking. Tokyo's slide also ... ANDREW TO Trading seems to be focusing on selective counters because investors are cautious amid interest rate... ANDREW TO We're seeing a minor technical rebound after Wall Street rebounded from two days of losses. The key ... ANDREW TO Some investors have returned to pick up the stock at bargain prices. ANDREW TO I think the take-up for the placement is not too good and other property developers may be discourag... ANDREW TO We are afraid that our freedoms and liberties will be infringed in the future. ANDREW TO I think there was some minor selling pressure on telecom stocks as the market continued to see a wea... ANDREW TO To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE 35. God is entitled to a portion of our income—not because He needs it but because we need to give... JAMES C. DOBSON When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need f... ERIC HOFFER The meaning to life. Is to live. ARMANDO RODRIGUEZ JR Some read to learn, some to laugh, and some to live. JOYCE RACHELLE The first marriage for a man is a big lesson, the second a grave blunder, the third a fatal accident... ANUJ SOMANY Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life. JONATHAN LOCKWOOD HUIE Why not admit that it is not our paramount duty to weep with all those who are weeping, to suffer wi... MAURICE MAETERLINCK Everything happens for a reason. The daily tragedies and misfortunes are all meaningful events, lead... FUWA AIKA If the meaning of death is to non-exist, then the only purpose of living is to give meaning to your ... MATTHEW WAYNE GAULIN Was it possible to find recompense, meaning, connection with others amidst the mess and the muddle ? ELIZABETH BUCHAN Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted. WILLIAM BRUCE CAMERON I always believe that every one of us is working hard not only for our own performance but also to g... YANI TSENG We don't need to increase our goods nearly as much as we need to scale down our wants. Not wanting s... DONALD HORBAN We need to forget about the Barcelona game as quickly as possible. We can't wait for Lyon to arrive ... IKER CASILLAS A Ritual to Read to Each Other If you don’t know the kind of person I am and... WILLIAM STAFFORD What will happen if we go to 0 day? ... Everything has been wipe out from the techno... DEYTH BANGER The sad heart needs work to do. JOAN BAUER There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an ... ANAïS NIN There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an ... ANAIS NIN The problem is that contemporary people think life is all about finding happiness. We decide what co... TIMOTHY J. KELLER Good reputations can take years to earn but only seconds to destroy. DANYELLE SIEBEN A tooth for a tooth, will make the world's inhabitants a people without teeth SOTONYE ANGA See the world as it is, not as you wish it would be E. LOCKHART Don't try to focus in something within itself is a failURE. DEYTH BANGER There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your... RICHARD DAWKINS People gave us a purpose. Something to do all day, every day. At the end, I suppose, you spend a lot... C. ROBERT CARGILL The saying sell all your belongings & give to the poor simply means "Redirect your mind to the verit... DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) How to live life;If we live each day as if it will be our very last,one day we will be absolutely co... DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) To be, or not to be, that is the question. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Your "Not To Do" list is also important. MANI S. SIVASUBRAMANIAN When someone says we need to talk , what he or she usually means is you will listen . An... JAMES ANDERSON Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is nev... A WALK TO REMEMBER Almighty God teach you my dear brother...more wit and knowledge than to be taken in by a good for no... CECIL WOODHAM-SMITH That is how to live: in the choosing. There are no rules but those you make for yourself. KAREN MARIE MONING Seasoning one’s claims with self-irony and modesty, cultivating a tolerance for moral ambiguity, p... JANE BENNETT Greet Sunrise.Salute Sunset.Embrace life your own unique journey has begun HANS FLEISCHER i don't trust or have a faith in anything but i just know very well that my past experience so i do ... HEM KUMAR PUN Live your life with love in your heart, and no matter what people say or may think help others and l... MIKE BOLTON Sadly, we give little thought or consideration to the messages that we entertain. ASA DON BROWN Responsibility is the admission that you have a role in this game called life. ASA DON BROWN Your spiritual mind is greater than your physical mind. ASA DON BROWN I, too, have made many mistakes, but one valuable lesson that I have learned is that we cannot allow... ASA DON BROWN Our human quest is to survive; our spiritual quest is to unite. ASA DON BROWN Life is a combination of our positive and negative choices. ASA DON BROWN But are you finding monastic history a very compelling reason to live?" "I'm not human," he sai... RACHEL HARTMAN My life is not mine - it is for my people – the humans – the humans of the thinking society. ABHIJIT NASKAR If you can develop this ability to see what you look at, to understand its meaning, to readjust your... ELEANOR ROOSEVELT We want to do something with the time we have, something that will give that time a certain meaning,... ROBERT GOOLRICK I think of myself as being a relatively intelligent man who is open to a lot of different things and... LAURENCE FISHBURNE I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahea... RICHARD YATES Remember that yours is not the only heart that may be wishing for love. CAMERON DOKEY There's plenty of money out there. They print more every day. But this ticket, there's only five of ... ROALD DAHL We are far from perfect but willing to be different. CRAIG GROESCHEL To be or not to be. That's not really a question. JEAN-LUC GODARD In six years, this was not the first time they had found themselves in such a compromising posi... JACQUELINE FRANCIS - WANTING TO REMEMBER, TRYING TO FORGET is not something that we own and that we can give out to whoever we want, to our friends, to those w... FRANCIS ARINZE What would life be called if there were no humans created? Meaningless, right? Is it our survival th... EPHDAN Most powerful of all powers in its holy insinuation is _being_. _To be_ is more powerful than even _... GEORGE MACDONALD Eventually I came across another passage. This is what it said: I am not commanding you, but I ... NICHOLAS SPARKS To kill a mockingbird. If you haven't read it, I think you should because it is very interesting. STEPHEN CHBOSKY I will never forget the vision of Jamie walking towards me. NICHOLAS SPARKS As these images were going through my head, my breathing suddenly went still. I looked at Jamie, the... NICHOLAS SPARKS You don't have to learn much out of books, it's like if you want to learn about cows, you go milk on... HARPER LEE You can't really get to know a person until you get in their shoes and walk around in them. HARPER LEE The need for devotion to something outside ourselves is even more profound than the need for compani... ROSS PARMENTER To 'get' something of phenomenal existence we need to truly give ourselves to love... in its expansi... TONY SAMARA But the examinations are the chief bugbears of my college life. Although I have faced them many time... HELEN KELLER ...our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than u... HELEN KELLER We can't change what life brings us, but we can change how we react. JIM GENOVESE I am free to choose my own actions. Indeed, like everyone else, I must be so. A good act that is com... CAMERON DOKEY What is it really like to be engaged?" asked Anne curiously. "Well, that all depends on ... L.M. MONTGOMERY Popularity ends on yearbook day-Respect stays forever. JOHN BYTHEWAY If you have to ask, you've never been in love. More than that, you've never had your feelings hurt b... CAMERON DOKEY When one reads hurriedly and nervously, having in mind written tests and examinations, one's brain b... HELEN KELLER I didn’t study medicine to watch people die." -Kira DAN WELLS But now we've finally taken full possession of what is rightfully ours, because everyone must feel t... NEAL SHUSTERMAN That's wrong," she declared. "Everyone must have one thing that they can excel at. It's just a matte... HARUKI MURAKAMI There’s only one question that matters, Ms. Lane, and it’s the one you never get around to askin... KAREN MARIE MONING Girls you are stronger than you know.. If you don't like being treated like a doormat the get the f*... KELLY ELLIOTT Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it appears to be. JEFFREY FRY There are so many things we do in life that define the real meaning of our lives. There are so many ... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sym... GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER Maybe it's not finding a reason, it's trusting that there is one. ANONOMYOUS. You're afraid of getting hurt like I'm afraid to die. It doesn't mean I'm not going to live every da... VI KEELAND Life isn’t about deserving.” I closed my eyes and sighed. “Aren’t you the one always spoutin... RACHEL VAN DYKEN Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly; In my own way, and with my full consent. Say... EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY The meaning of life is to experience and the purpose of life is to give your experience a meaning. SUPERNA BATHEJA Shelley, you’re just like that oyster.” God confronted me on the deeper areas of my life that I ... SHELLEY LUBBEN
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 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