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The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.
Eric Hoffer
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Eric Hoffer
Age: 84 †
Born: 1898
Born: July 25
Died: 1983
Died: May 21
Philosopher
Psychologist
Writer
New York City
New York
Woman
Mother
Young
Sadness
Children
Misery
Men
Nobody
Child
Literature
Interesting
More quotes by Eric Hoffer
Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.
Eric Hoffer
A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.
Eric Hoffer
There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect.
Eric Hoffer
Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest.
Eric Hoffer
The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
Eric Hoffer
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.
Eric Hoffer
When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.
Eric Hoffer
Language was invented to ask questions.
Eric Hoffer
We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
Eric Hoffer
The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the front men with insatiable appetites for action, power and all that the world has to offer.
Eric Hoffer
When you automate an industry you modernize it when you automate a life you primitivize it.
Eric Hoffer
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
Eric Hoffer
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.
Eric Hoffer
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
Eric Hoffer
Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay.
Eric Hoffer
The ruthlessness born of self-seeking is ineffectual compared with the ruthlessness sustained by dedication to a holy cause. God wishes, said Calvin, that one should put aside all humanity when it is a question of striving for His glory.
Eric Hoffer
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
Radicalism itself ceases to be radical when absorbed mainly in preserving its control over a society or an economy.
Eric Hoffer
We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
Eric Hoffer
Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others.
Eric Hoffer