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Nothing so offends the doctrinaire intellectual as our ability to achieve the momentous in a matter-of-fact way, unblessed by words.
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
Words
Facts
Doctrinaire
Nothing
Momentous
Matter
Offends
Way
Intellectual
Achieve
Ability
Fact
More quotes by Eric Hoffer
Sensuality reconciles us with the human race. The misanthropy of the old is due in large part to the fading of the magic glow of desire.
Eric Hoffer
One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
Eric Hoffer
Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
Eric Hoffer
The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.
Eric Hoffer
The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.
Eric Hoffer
Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.
Eric Hoffer
The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me.
Eric Hoffer
Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.
Eric Hoffer
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
The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
Eric Hoffer
The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led.
Eric Hoffer
For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. And whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature and potentialities.
Eric Hoffer
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
The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.
Eric Hoffer
When cowardice becomes a fashion its adherents are without number, and it masquerades as forbearance, reasonableness and whatnot.
Eric Hoffer
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
Naivete in grownups is often charming but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Eric Hoffer
The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.
Eric Hoffer
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
Eric Hoffer
Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
Eric Hoffer
