“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.”
Section 13
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Eric Hoffer 240
American philosopher 1898–1983Related quotes
“Unless we have something worth dying for, Atretes, we've nothing worth living for.”
Source: A Voice in the Wind
“We all need to give our lives a sense of significance, of a meaning that lives on after our deaths”
2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)
Context: If Kim Jong Un is Chosun, as the slogan goes, then his decline in popularity must be the state’s too? But it doesn’t work that way. We all need to give our lives a sense of significance, of a meaning that lives on after our deaths. The North Koreans get that from their nationalism, which is one with their patriotism. If they lose that, what do they have?

“The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart.”

As Walter Lippman said: "Our life, though it is full of things, is empty of the kind of purpose and effort that gives to life its flavor and meaning.
Thoughts on Man's Purpose in Life (1974)

Speech in Stockport (8 June 1973), quoted in The Times (9 June 1973), p. 3
1970s