Quote

The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.

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
Oneself
Lose
Loses
Desire
Partly
Belong

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a have type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a have not type of self.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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
Image
The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.
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
Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.
Eric Hoffer
Image
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
Eric Hoffer
Image
However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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
Image
The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
Eric Hoffer
Image
What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored.
Eric Hoffer
Image
They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.
Eric Hoffer
Image
No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one's individual distinctness in a compact collective whole.
Eric Hoffer
Image
In human affairs, the best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from.
Eric Hoffer