Quotes by Eric Hoffer

In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists.

It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individuals hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket.

They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor. (Eric Hoffer 1902-1983)

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

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

Rudeness is the weak mans imitation of strength.

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.

When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.

If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a God or not. The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion.

There is perhaps some hope to be derived from the fact that in most instances where an attempt to realize an ideal society gave birth to the ugliness and violence of a prolonged active mass movement the experiment was made on a vast scale and with a heterogeneous population. Such was the case in the rise of Christianity and Islam, and in the French, Russian and Nazi revolutions. The promising communal settlements in the small state of Israel and the successful programs of socialization in the small Scandinavian states indicate perhaps that when the attempt to realize an ideal society is undertaken by a small nation with a more or less homogeneous population it can proceed and succeed in an atmosphere which is neither hectic nor coercive.

Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.

Treasure the memories of past misfortunes they constitute our bank of fortitude.

The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.

When people are bored it is primarily with their own selves.

When people are bored it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.

It is thus with most of us we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have something worth fighting for they do not feel like fighting.