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Eric Hoffer Quotes
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Eric Hoffer was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer , was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that The Ordeal of Change was his finest work. Wikipedia  

✵ 25. July 1898 – 21. May 1983
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Eric Hoffer: 240 quotes14 likes

Eric Hoffer Quotes

“In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 32 <!-- also quoted in On Becoming a Leader (1989) by Warren G. Bennis, p. 189 -->
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
Variant: In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
Context: The central task of education is to implant a will and a facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

“You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.”

Eric Hoffer

Variant: You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.

“Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.”

Eric Hoffer

“To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.”

Eric Hoffer

“To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.”

Eric Hoffer

“An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.”

Eric Hoffer

Source: Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), p. 54 of a 1974 edition

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”

Eric Hoffer

Source: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 75
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Context: Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

“It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 56
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Source: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Context: It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs.
Context: The readiness for self-sacrifice is contingent on an imperviousness to the realities of life.... For self-sacrifice is an unreasonable act.... All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world.... by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it.... To rely on the evidence of senses and of reason is heresy and treason. It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs.

“Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting.”

Eric Hoffer

“Flaubert and Nietzsche have emphasized the importance of standing up and walking in the process of thinking. The peripatetics were perhaps motivated by the same awareness. Yet purposeful walking — what we call marching — is an enemy of thought and is used as a powerful instrument for the suppression of independent thought and the inculcation of unquestioned obedience.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1960)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“As a full-time longshoreman I am necessarily more a scribbler than a writer. But I am also so by inclination. The writing I can enjoy is the sketching of an idea in a few dozen words — two hundred at most. Elaboration and expansion are for me hard going. An article of several thousand words becomes inevitably a mosaic of ideas — a series of ideas stuck together.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1962)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“The impulse to think, to philosophize and spin beauty and brilliance out of mind and soul, is somehow the offspring of resistance — of an effort to overcome an apparently insurmountable obstacle. Hence cultural creativeness is more likely to flourish in an atmosphere of restriction, of an imposed pattern of thought and behavior, than in one of total freedom.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1956)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“To believe that if we could have but this or that we would be happy is to suppress the realization that the cause of our unhappiness is in our inadequate and blemished selves. Excessive desire is thus a means of suppressing our sense of worthlessness.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 6
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“To think for oneself is not only, as Gide said, counterrevolutionary but also apostasy and, at certain times, treason.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1953)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“Social stability is the product of an equilibrium between a vigorous majority and violent minorities. Disorder does not come from an increased inner pressure or from the interaction of explosive ingredients. There is no reason to believe that the nature of the violent minorities is now greatly different from what it was in the past. What has changed is the will and ability of the majority to react.
It is hard to tell what causes the pervasive timidity. One thinks of video-induced stupor, intake of tranquilizers, fear of not living to enjoy the many new possessions and toys, the example of our betters in cities and on campuses who high-mindedly surrender to threats of violence and make cowardice fashionable.”

Eric Hoffer

Source: First Things, Last Things (1971), Ch. 8 "Thoughts on the Present"

“It is apparently vital that we should be in the dark about ourselves — not to be clear about our intentions, fears, and hopes. There is a stubborn effort in us to set up a compact screen between consciousness and the self.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1956)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”

Eric Hoffer

Source: Reflections on the Human Condition (1973) Section 53

“Some people have no original ideas because they do not think well enough of themselves to consider their ideas worth noticing and developing.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1967)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will and meanness in their fellow men. Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 100
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice

“The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 9
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements

“Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 44
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

“If in order to keep the wheels turning you have to deafen ears with propaganda, crack the whip of Terror, and keep pushing people around, then you haven't got a machine civilization no matter how numerous and ingenious your machines.”

Eric Hoffer

Source: The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 5: "The Readiness to Work"

“The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 94
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice

“I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.”

Eric Hoffer

Source: Before the Sabbath (1979), p. 79

“The capacity to resist coercion stems partly from the individual's identification with a group.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 45, Ch. 13 Factors Promoting Self-sacrifice
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice

“The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 113 http://books.google.com/books?id=msOwAAAAIAAJ&amp;q=%22The+pleasure+we+derive+from+doing+favors+is+partly+in+the+feeling+it+gives+us+that+we+are+not+altogether+worthless%22&amp;pg=PA72#v=onepage <br class="br">The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment.”

Eric Hoffer

"Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: 'Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely'", The New York Times Magazine (April 25, 1971), p. 50.

“To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 215
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“The fear of becoming a "has been" keeps some people from becoming anything.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 231 http://books.google.com/books?id=msOwAAAAIAAJ&amp;q=%22The+fear+of+becoming+a+has+been+keeps+some+people+from+becoming+anything%22&amp;pg=PA134#v=onepage <br class="br">The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 140
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 61
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“When the same person or persons (or the same type of person) leads a movement from its inception to maturity, it usually ends in disaster.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

The True Believer (1951), Part Four: Beginning and End

“Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 78
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.”

Eric Hoffer

Source: Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), p. 20

“A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past. (1954), p. 75”

Eric Hoffer

The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“What merit there is in my thinking is derived from two peculiarities: (1) My inability to be familiar with anything. I simply can't take things for granted. (2) My endless patience. I assume that the only way to find an answer is to hang on long enough and keep groping.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1951)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“I have never felt that I had a thought too profound for others to understand. On the contrary, it always seemed to me axiomatic that what was clear to me should be clear and easy to everyone else. This despite the fact that it often took me years to grope my way to an idea…. I can spend days and even months on a single sentence. I do not know how to skip. To think and write with me is like putting brick on brick.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1959)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“By circumstance and perhaps also by inclination, I think in complete intellectual isolation. To expect others to help me think seems to me almost like expecting them to help me digest my food.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1954)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.”

Eric Hoffer

As quoted in Dictionary of Quotable Definitions (1970) by Eugene Brussell

“A good sentence is a key. It unlocks the mind of the reader.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1962)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 26
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

“To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats — we know it not.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 59
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others — that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.”

Eric Hoffer

Journal entry (30 October 1958, 6:30 am)
Working and Thinking on the Waterfront (1969)

“Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 54
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice

“We tend today to exaggerate the effectiveness of persuasion as a means of inculcating opinion and shaping behavior. …Actually the fabulous effects ascribed to propaganda have no greater foundation in fact than the fall of the walls of Jericho ascribed to the blast of Joshua's trumpets.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 83
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice

“The most incurably frustrated—and, therefore, the most vehement—among the permanent misfits are those with an unfulfilled craving for creative work. Both those who try to write, paint, compose, etcetera, and fail decisively, and those who after tasting the elation of creativeness feel a drying up of the creative flow within and know that never again will they produce aught worthwhile, are alike in the grip of a desperate passion. Neither fame nor power nor riches nor even monumental achievements in other fields can still their hunger. Even the wholehearted dedication to a holy cause does not always cure them. Their unappeased hunger persists, and they are likely to become the most violent extremists in the service of their holy cause.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 37, Ch.6 Misfits
The True Believer (1951), Part Two: The Potential Converts