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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
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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
Preoccupation
Prevents
Adversity
Present
Seeing
Future
Often
Rearrange
Past
Prompts
More quotes by Eric Hoffer
To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as he really is. It is by eliminating man from their equation that the makers of history can predict the future, and the writers of history can give a pattern to the past.
Eric Hoffer
The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.
Eric Hoffer
What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored.
Eric Hoffer
With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
Eric Hoffer
Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.
Eric Hoffer
If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope.
Eric Hoffer
The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious.
Eric Hoffer
We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.
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
The necessary has never been man's top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, man's greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities.
Eric Hoffer
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Eric Hoffer
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
Eric Hoffer
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
Eric Hoffer
There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.
Eric Hoffer
Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
Eric Hoffer
Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest.
Eric Hoffer
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
Eric Hoffer
This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter
Eric Hoffer
Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.
Eric Hoffer
The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.
Eric Hoffer
