Quotes By Eric Hoffer

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.

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.

Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

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

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

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

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

Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.

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

Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

Our 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.

Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent.

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.

It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

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.

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

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

We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.

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

Unpredictability, too, can become monotonous.

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

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

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.

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

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

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.

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

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