Quote

We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.

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
Happened
Remember
Really
Things
Never
Minutely
Precisely

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another.
Eric Hoffer
Image
There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
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
Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the front men with insatiable appetites for action, power and all that the world has to offer.
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
Image
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
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 true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Communists are frustrated capitalists.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.
Eric Hoffer
Image
There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
Eric Hoffer
Image
One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
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 Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.
Eric Hoffer