Quote

The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.

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
Selfishness
Stupidity
Vanity
Hardest
Thing
Deceitfulness
Cope
Sheer

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
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
Image
However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
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
The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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
Image
The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong it easily becomes a fashion.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The conservatism of a religion - it's orthodoxy - is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
Eric Hoffer
Image
First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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
Image
People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a have type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a have not type of self.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.
Eric Hoffer
Image
My writing is done in railroad yards while waiting for a freight, in the fields while waiting for a truck, and at noon after lunch. Towns are too distracting.
Eric Hoffer
Image
EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
Eric Hoffer