Quote

Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.

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
Opportunity
Paucity
Potent
Unlimited
Frustration
Opportunities
Lack
Cause
Causes

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self and begin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding a new identity or by blurring and camouflaging their individual distinctness and both these ends are reached by imitation.
Eric Hoffer
Image
To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats- we know it not.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not originate. To discover something wholly new can be a matter of chance, of idle tinkering, or even of the chronic dissatisfaction of the untalented.
Eric Hoffer
Image
However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
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
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
A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
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
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
In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it given a more or less free hand in the cultural field. By frustrating the scribe's craving for commanding action, the trader draws upon himself the scribe's wrath and scorn.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power - power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors they want to retaliate.
Eric Hoffer