Quote

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

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
Place
Intent
Self
Greed
Envy
Esteem
Increase
Takes
Unobtainable
Less
Diminution
Others
Bullying

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
Eric Hoffer
Image
What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.
Eric Hoffer
Image
To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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
Image
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
Eric Hoffer
Image
There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
Eric Hoffer
Image
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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
Image
The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else--we are the busiest people in the world.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder.
Eric Hoffer
Image
In human affairs every solution serves only to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. There are no final solutions.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
Eric Hoffer
Image
To change everything, simply change your attitude.
Eric Hoffer