Top 121 Eric Hoffer Quotes

There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people – we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.

Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.

It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor.

You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.

Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man’s spirit than when we win his heart.

The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.

Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.

With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.

It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words.

Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.

Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.

One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action – the ability to pass directly from thought to action.

Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy – the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.

Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.

There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.

Unpredictability, too, can become monotonous.

There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.

Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.

Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.

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

We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true; they ruin our dreams.

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.

Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.

The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.

A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.

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

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.

A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.

The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.

When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.

Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one’s balance and keep afloat.

It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.

In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.

It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men.

Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor.

Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent.

There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.

Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.

Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.

There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people – we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

We 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.

Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.

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

There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.

The beginning of thought is in disagreement – not only with others but also with ourselves.

Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.

There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.

We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.

A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy – the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.

Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.

It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor.

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

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.

The beginning of thought is in disagreement – not only with others but also with ourselves.

A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.

The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.

The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.

The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.

It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.

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 and talents.

Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.

Animals often strike us as passionate machines.

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

To the old, the new is usually bad news.

Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are.

The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.

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.

Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent.

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.

A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.

Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.

It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.