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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
Eric Hoffer photo
Eric Hoffer: 240   quotes 12   likes

Eric Hoffer Quotes

“When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 83
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Truth , Indifference

“Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 216
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Truth

“To overestimate the originality of one's thoughts is perhaps a less serious defect than being unaware of their newness. There is a more pronounced lack of sensitivity in underestimating (ourselves and others) than in overestimating.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1957)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

“We can never have enough of that which we really do not want, and… we run fastest and farthest from ourselves.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

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

“J. B. S. Haldane counts fanaticism among the only four really important inventions made between 3000 B. C and 1400 A. D. It was a Judaic-Christian invention. And it is strange to think that in receiving this malady of the soul the world also received a miraculous instrument for raising societies and nations from the dead—an instrument of resurrection.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 125, Ch.18 Good and Bad Mass Movements, citing Haldane's The Inequality of Man (1938)
The True Believer (1951), Part Four: Beginning and End

World , Soul , Thinking , Dead

“We usually see only the things we are looking for — so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 237
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.”

Eric Hoffer

On the first moon-landing, as quoted in The New York Times (21 July 1969)

God , Home , Star , Passion

“A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.”

Eric Hoffer

Source: Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), p. 127

War

“There is in even the most selfish passion a large element of self-abnegation. It is startling to realize that what we call extreme self-seeking is actually self-renunciation. The miser, health addict, glory chaser and their like are not far behind the selfless in the exercise of self-sacrifice.”

Eric Hoffer

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

Health , Exercises , Passion , Selfishness

“Thinking with me is like looking for a person whose address I don't know. I stand on a street corner all day long waiting for him to pass by. Certainly there are more efficient ways of locating a person whose address you don't know. But if you have a whole lifetime to wait and enjoy watching things go by, then waiting on street corners is as good a method as any. If you don't find the person you are looking for, you might meet someone else.”

Eric Hoffer

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

Way , Thinking , Waiting , Personality

“One is not quite certain that creativeness in the arts, literature, and science functions best in an environment of absolute freedom. Chances are that a relatively mild tyranny stimulates creativeness.”

Eric Hoffer

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

Art , Literature , Freedom , Science

“The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.”

Eric Hoffer

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

Fear

“A just society must strive with all its might to right wrongs even if righting wrongs is a highly perilous undertaking. But if it is to survive, a just society must be strong and resolute enough to deal swiftly and relentlessly with those who would mistake its good will for weakness.”

Eric Hoffer

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

Strong

“When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 13
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements

Loyalty

“No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 159
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Reading , Heart

“I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1977)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
Context: Disraeli felt that "nothing could compensate his obscure youth, not even a glorious old age." Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences — nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.

“One would like to see mankind spend the balance of the century in a total effort to clean up and groom the surface of the globe — wipe out the jungles, turn deserts and swamps into arable land, terrace barren mountains, regulate rivers, eradicate all pests, control the weather, and make the whole land mass a fit habitation for Man. The globe should be our and not nature's home, and we no longer nature's guests.”

Eric Hoffer

The Temper of Our Time (1967)

Home , Mountain , Nature , Effort

“Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 8
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own… Whether it our own meaningless self we are upholding, or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith.”

Eric Hoffer

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

Faith , Support , Effort

“That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor the flashes we are without growth and exhilaration.”

Eric Hoffer

Also quoted in Between the Devil and the Dragon : The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer (1982)
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

“The elites are finally catching up with us. We can hear the swish of leather as saddles are heaved on our backs. The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us.”

Eric Hoffer

Source: First Things, Last Things (1971), p. 65

Feeling

“To the intellectual the struggle for freedom is more vital than the actuality of a free society. He would rather "work, fight, talk, for liberty than have it."”

Eric Hoffer

Source: The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 12: "Concerning Individual Freedom". [In this passage "work, fight, talk, for liberty than have it" is a quotation of Lincoln Steffens from The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (1931), p. 635]

Freedom , Fight

“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.”

Eric Hoffer

Section 32
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Children , People , Learning , Parent

“It has been my experience that there is no substitute for time where thinking is concerned. Why is it so? The answer seems to be that in many cases to think means to be able to allow the mind to stray from the task at hand. The mind must be able to be "elsewhere." This needs time.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1955)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

Time , Thinking

“Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences — nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.”

Eric Hoffer

Entry (1977)
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

Fate , Youth , Age