Quote

Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person.

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
Judgment
Deceptions
Seeing
Dormant
Evil
Awaken
Persons
Decency
Able
Intentions
Person
Deception
Every
Consists
Intention

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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
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 clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.
Eric Hoffer
Image
If anybody asks me what I have accomplished, I will say all I have accomplished is that I have written a few good sentences.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is part of the formidableness of a genuine mass movement that the self-sacrifice it promotes includes also a sacrifice of some of the moral sense, which cramps and restrains our nature.
Eric Hoffer
Image
For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.
Eric Hoffer
Image
We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are never of one kind, that we never love without reservations and never hate with all our being cannot prevent us from seeing others as wholly black or white.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Creativity is discontent translated into arts.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is thus with most of us we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The most troublesome problem which confronts social engineering is how to provide for the untalented and, what is equally important, how to provide against them.
Eric Hoffer
Image
There is need for some kind of make-believe in order to face death unflinchingly. To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for.
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
Image
Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest.
Eric Hoffer
Image
To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.
Eric Hoffer