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Eric Hoffer Quotes (1902-1983)
Writer
About Eric Hoffer
Eric Hoffer (25 July 1902 – 21 May 1983) was an American writer on social and political philosophy. His first book, The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements (1951) is widely recognized as a classic on mass-movements and the psychological roots of fanaticism. Despite rising to fame with the success and popularity of his writings, he continued to work as a longshoreman until retiring at age 65.
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Eric Hoffer quotes.
“We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.”
“'''To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.”
“I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.”
“Our greatest weariness comes from work not done.”
“When people are free to do as we please, they usually imitate each other.”
“The fear of becoming a "has been" keeps some people from becoming anything.”
“A good sentence is a key. It unlocks the mind of the reader.”
“Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.”
“The Renaissance was a time of mercenary soldiers, ours is a time of mercenary labor.”
“It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.”
“A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.”
“The beginning of thought is in disagreement — not only with others but also with ourselves.”
“Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.”
“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”
“Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.”
Eric Hoffer Quotes by Topic
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Eric Hoffer on Fanaticism 5 quotes
“The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure.”
Eric Hoffer on Totalitarianism 4 quotes
“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.”
Eric Hoffer on Intellectual 4 quotes
“A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.”
Eric Hoffer on Escapism 4 quotes
“With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.”
Eric Hoffer on Freedom 3 quotes
View all 3 quotes on Freedom →Eric Hoffer on Equality 3 quotes
“Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority. Equality without freedom creates a more stable social pattern than freedom without equality.”
Eric Hoffer on Humanity 3 quotes
“The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.”
Eric Hoffer on Power 3 quotes
“There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutions—to cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.”
Eric Hoffer on Problem 2 quotes
View all 2 quotes on Problem →Eric Hoffer on Equilibrium 2 quotes
“To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.”
Eric Hoffer on Fear 2 quotes
“It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.”
Eric Hoffer on Evil 2 quotes
“It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.”
What Eric Hoffer Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Eric Hoffer shared regarding contemporaries.
Eric Hoffer on Vladimir Lenin 2 quotes
“Lenin sprung a leak in the cesspool of Russian history and the stench has poisoned the civilized world.”
Eric Hoffer on Adolf Hitler 2 quotes
“The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind.”
Eric Hoffer on Blaise Pascal
Eric Hoffer on Richard Nixon
“The Nixon tragedy: A man of unsurpassed courage and outstanding intelligence but without vision. An opportunist who missed his greatest opportunity.”
Eric Hoffer on José Ortega y Gasset
“Ortega y Gasset is of the opinion that the inability of a country to produce a genuine mass movement indicates some ethnological defect. He says of his own Spain that its "ethnological intelligence has always been an atrophied function and has never had a normal development."”
Eric Hoffer on Joseph Stalin
“The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind.”
Eric Hoffer on J. B. S. Haldane
“J. B. S. Haldane counts fanaticism among the only four really important inventions made between 3000 B.C and 1400 A.D. It was a Judaic-Christian invention. And it is strange to think that in receiving this malady of the soul the world also received a miraculous instrument for raising societies and nations from the dead—an instrument of resurrection.”
Eric Hoffer on Hermann Göring
“Had Hitler died in middle of the 1930's, Nazism would probably have shown, under the leadership of a Goering, a fundamental change in its course, and the Second World War might have been averted. Yet the sepulcher of Hitler, the founder of a Nazi religion, might perhaps have been a greater evil than all the atrocities, bloodshed and destruction of Hitler's war.”
Eric Hoffer on Gamal Abdel Nasser
“Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on.”
Eric Hoffer on Alfred North Whitehead
“Our time has seen the best-educated society, situated in the heart of the most civilized part of the world, give birth to the most murderously vengeful government in history. Forty years ago the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead thought it self-evident that you would get a good government if you took power out of the hands of the acquisitive and gave it to the learned and the cultivated. At present, a child in kindergarten knows better than that.”
Eric Hoffer on Arthur Miller
“I have come across several articles by the American playwright Arthur Miller in which he sets out to denounce Stalin's purges and Brezhnev's invasion of Czechoslovakia but ends up denouncing America. Living in America, Arthur Miller wrote all the plays he wanted to write, had them produced, and was amply rewarded by money and fame. He also managed to have everything his heart desired, including the most fabulous blonde of his day. Why then this loathing for America? The only explanation I can think of is that Miller is too self-righteous and self-important to admit the gross stupidity of his Stalinist commitment. He must go on trying to convince the world that there is not much to choose between Russia and America.”
Quotes About Eric Hoffer
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Eric Sevareid on Eric Hoffer
“America meant freedom and what is freedom? To Hoffer it is the capacity to feel like oneself. He felt like Eric Hoffer; sometimes like Eric Hoffer, working man. It could be said, I believe, that he is the first important American writer, working class born, who remained working class — in his habits, associations, environment. I cannot think of another. Therefore, he was a national resource. The only one of its kind in the nation's possession.”
About Eric Hoffer
Eric Hoffer (25 July 1902 – 21 May 1983) was an American writer on social and political philosophy. His first book, The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements (1951) is widely recognized as a classic on mass-movements and the psychological roots of fanaticism. Despite rising to fame with the success and popularity of his writings, he continued to work as a longshoreman until retiring at age 65.
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