Quote

Intolerance is the ''Do Not Touch'' sign on something that cannot bear touching. We do not mind having our hair ruffled, but we will not tolerate any familiarity with the toupee which covers our baldness.

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
Humor
Touching
Hair
Tolerate
Funny
Tolerance
Toupee
Cannot
Humorous
Ruffled
Mind
Sign
Baldness
Something
Bear
Familiarity
Touch
Covers
Bears
Intolerance

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.
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
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
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
Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs subordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Where unity and self-sacrifice are indispensable for the normal functioning of society, everyday life is likely to be either religiofied (common tasks turned into holy causes) or militarized.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Ours is a golden age of minorities. At no time in the past have dissident minorities felt so much at home and had so much room to throw their weight around. They speak and act as if they were the people, and what they abominate most is the dissent of the majority.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.
Eric Hoffer
Image
You cannot gauge the intelligence of an American by talking with him you must work with him. The American polishes and refines his way of doing things-even the most commonplace-the way the French of the 17th century polished their maxims.
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
Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.
Eric Hoffer