Quote

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.

Eric Hoffer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Eric Hoffer
Age: 84 †
Born: 1898
Born: July 25
Died: 1983
Died: May 21
Philosopher
Psychologist
Writer
New York City
New York
Greatest
Pretense
Beauty
Emptiness
Evil
Hide
Thing
Math
Something
Hardest
Ugly
Built
Pretenses
Trust
Pretension

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life
Eric Hoffer
Image
To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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.
Eric Hoffer
Image
However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new . . . is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is apparently vital that we should be in the dark about ourselves not to be clear about our intentions, fears, and hopes. There is a stubborn effort in us to set up a compact screen between consciousness and the self.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When the Greeks said, Whom the gods love die young, they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested, that those favored by the gods stay young till the day they die young and playful.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.
Eric Hoffer
Image
One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Faith is primarily a process of identification the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is the acquisition of skills in particular, irrespective of their utility, that is potent in making life meaningful. Since man has no inborn skills, the survival of the species has depended on the ability to acquire and perfect skills. Hence the mastery of skills is a uniquely human activity and yields deep satisfaction.
Eric Hoffer