Quotes by Eric Hoffer

When people are free to do as they please they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced and partakes of the nature of a protest.

Fear is uncertainty.

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

People in a hurry cannot think cannot grow nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility.

However much we guard against it we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.

The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility.

Power corrupts the few while weakness corrupts the many.

Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.

Not actual suffering but the hope of better things incites people to revolt.

To believe that if only we had this or that we would be happy or to pursue any excessive desire diverts us from seeing that happiness depends on an adequate self.

Fair play with others is primarily not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us.

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true they ruin our dreams.

There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.

It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.

It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love ones neighbor.

Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.

Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.

It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.