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
home men order
A plant needs roots in order to grow. With man it is the other way around: only when he grows does he have roots and feels at home in the world.
greek logic fooled
The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.
time eye paradox
It is a paradox that in our time of drastic rapid change, when the future is in our midst devouring the present before our eyes, we have never been less certain about what is ahead of us.
nursing opportunity people
People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
believe eye law
However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable.
writing ideas sickness
Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas .
hate common unified
We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
matter rowdy submissive
The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.
dog horse cat
Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.
time youth talent
Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent.
passion shrinking literature
There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
business people world
When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest people in the world.
death dying world
How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.
freedom tests
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.