Eric Hoffer
Eric Hoffer
Eric Hofferwas an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer, was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that The Ordeal of Change was his finest work...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth25 July 1902
CountryUnited States of America
loss vigor prejudice
Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor.
wall real self
A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
strong mistake might
A just society must strive with all its might to right wrongs even if righting wrongs is a highly perilous undertaking. But if it is to survive, a just society must be strong and resolute enough to deal swiftly and relentlessly with those who would mistake its good will for weakness.
men mind snooping
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding,
echoes world quarrels
Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us.
intellectual matter way
Nothing so offends the doctrinaire intellectual as our ability to achieve the momentous in a matter-of-fact way, unblessed by words.
country america people
Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America,
israel holocaust premonition
I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
type reduction categories
Totalitarianism spells simplification: an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power.
real men wish
The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the front men with insatiable appetites for action, power and all that the world has to offer.
country fashion song
There is a grandeur in the uniformity of the mass. When a fashion, a dance, a song, a slogan or a joke sweeps like wildfire from one end of the continent to the other, and a hundred million people roar with laughter, sway their bodies in unison, hum one song or break forth in anger and denunciation, there is the overpowering feeling that in this country we have come nearer the brotherhood of man than ever before.
men hands brotherhood-of-man
A low capacity for getting along with those near us often goes hand in hand with a high receptivity to the idea of the brotherhood of men.
mother giving literature
Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
mind literature prejudice
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.