Famous Quotes By Eric Hoffer

 

1. Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.
2. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
3. Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
4. Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.
5. Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
6. In times of change learners inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
7. It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.
8. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
9. It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
10. It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
11. 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.
12. It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate.
13. It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
14. Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
15. Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.
16. 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.
17. Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.
18. Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
19. Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
20. Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
21. The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.
22. The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
23. The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
24. The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
25. The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
26. 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.
27. The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
28. There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
29. There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
30. 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.
31. To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
32. We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
33. We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true they ruin our dreams.
34. 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.
35. We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.
36. When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
37. Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.