Quote

Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.

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
Masses
Mass
Freedom
Energy
Irritating
Exhilarating
Energies
Dissent
Released

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.
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
There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A man's worth is what he is divided by what he thinks he is.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Actual creativeness is a matter of moments. One has to piece together the minute grains to make a lump. And it is so easy to miss the momentary flashes, it is like sluicing in placer mining. He who lets the flakes float by has nothing to show for his trouble.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Woe to him inside a non-conformist clique who does not conform to non-conformity.
Eric Hoffer
Image
To find the cause of our ills in something outside ourselves, something specific that can be spotted and eliminated, is a diagnosis that cannot fail to appeal. To say that the cause of our troubles is not in us but in the Jews , and pass immediately to the extermination of the Jews, is a prescription likely to find a wide acceptance.
Eric Hoffer
Image
In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.
Eric Hoffer
Image
To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. It not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give their allegiance to him who offers them a grievance.
Eric Hoffer
Image
A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Whenever we proclaim the uniqueness of a religion , a truth , a leader, a nation, a race, a part or a holy cause, we are also proclaiming our own uniqueness.
Eric Hoffer
Image
In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
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
Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
Eric Hoffer
Image
There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard.
Eric Hoffer