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The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth
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
Belief
Presented
Truth
Sublime
Doe
Effective
Come
Doctrine
Profound
However
Certitude
Meaning
Embodiment
Unless
Effectiveness
More quotes by Eric Hoffer
People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
Eric Hoffer
The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.
Eric Hoffer
Naivete in grownups is often charming but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Eric Hoffer
To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.
Eric Hoffer
Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life.
Eric Hoffer
One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
Eric Hoffer
Successful action tends to become an end in itself.
Eric Hoffer
However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
Eric Hoffer
There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
Eric Hoffer
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
One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.
Eric Hoffer
The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.
Eric Hoffer
When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
Eric Hoffer
There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves.
Eric Hoffer
Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.
Eric Hoffer
There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
Eric Hoffer
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
The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.
Eric Hoffer
Nothing so offends the doctrinaire intellectual as our ability to achieve the momentous in a matter-of-fact way, unblessed by words.
Eric Hoffer
A good sentence is a key . It unlocks the mind of the reader.
Eric Hoffer
