Quotes By Eric Hoffer

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.

To the old, the new is usually bad news.

It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.

A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.

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

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

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

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

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.

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