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
Deceitfulness
Cope
Sheer
Selfishness
Stupidity
Vanity
Hardest
Thing

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity--the endless flow of life and death--than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact
Eric Hoffer
Image
...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.
Eric Hoffer
Image
That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor the flashes we are without growth and exhilaration.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.
Eric Hoffer
Image
To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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
Image
Though they seem at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never meet.
Eric Hoffer
Image
In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling.
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
The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one's individual distinctness in a compact collective whole.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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
Image
The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
Eric Hoffer
Image
They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance.
Eric Hoffer