01UndatedEvery great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
02UndatedThere would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
04UndatedThe opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
05UndatedWe are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities but its own talents.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
06UndatedIt still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
07UndatedWe feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
08UndatedIf the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
09UndatedHatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
10UndatedEven the sober desire for progress is sustained by faith—faith in the intrinsic goodness of human nature and in the omnipotence of science. It is a defiant and blasphemous faith, not unlike that held by the men who set out to build a "city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven" and who believed that "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
11UndatedIn 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.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
15UndatedCreativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
16UndatedIn times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
19UndatedThe beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
20UndatedOur frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
22UndatedTo become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
23UndatedIn the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes--courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc.--can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.Nature has no compassion. It is, in the words of William Blake, "a creation that groans, living on the death; where fish and bird and beast and tree and metal and stone live by devouring." Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.Eric Hoffer / quote ↗
