Quotes By Eric Hoffer

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate.

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.

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

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.

The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.

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

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

When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.

Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.

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

A man by himself is in bad company.

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

There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.

Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled.

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.