Quote

The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate.

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
Impulse
Imitator
Model
Breeds
Overcoming
Inferiority
Models
Imitate
Sense
Imitation
Resentment
Inherent
Overcome
Imitators

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
Nothing so offends the doctrinaire intellectual as our ability to achieve the momentous in a matter-of-fact way, unblessed by words.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion.
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
Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Spiritual stagnation ensues when man's environment becomes unpredictable or when his inner life is made wholly predictable.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Even in slight things the experience of the new is rarely without some stirring of foreboding.
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
A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When you automate an industry you modernize it when you automate a life you primitivize it.
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
The desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection- real or imagined- by them.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.
Eric Hoffer
Image
All great art is revolutionary because it touches upon the reality of man and questions the reality of the various transitory forms of human society.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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
Image
Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche.
Eric Hoffer