Quote

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

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
Individual
Societies
Anxieties
Culture
Cultures
Civilizations
Individuality
Incomprehensible
Often
Hunger
Preoccupation
Dream
Anxiety
Remained
Millenia
Past
Civilization
Outsiders
Hungers
Dreams
Timeless
Preoccupations
Present
Conformity
Unchanged

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
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
Image
Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
Eric Hoffer
Image
There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
Eric Hoffer
Image
No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion it is an evil government.
Eric Hoffer
Image
All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We cannot hate those who we despise.
Eric Hoffer
Image
There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Facts are counterrevolutionary.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Action is basically a reaction against loss of balance - a flailing of the arms to to regain one's balance. To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
Eric Hoffer
Image
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.
Eric Hoffer