Quote

God alone is satisfied with what He is and can proclaim: I am what I am. Unlike God, man strives with all his might to be what he is not. He incessantly proclaims: I am what I am not.

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
Men
Incessantly
Proclaim
Strife
Unlike
Satisfied
Strive
Alone
Proclaims
Might
Strives

More quotes by 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
To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
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
Naivete in grownups is often charming but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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
Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.
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
Image
Love-making is radical, while marriage is conservative.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When you automate an industry you modernize it when you automate a life you primitivize it.
Eric Hoffer
Image
America is still the best country for the common man -- white or black ... if he can't make it here he won't make it anywhere else.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
Eric Hoffer
Image
People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Laughter to begin with was probably glee at the misfortunes of others. The baring of the teeth in laughter hints at its savage ancestry. Animals have no malice, hence also no laughter. They never savor the sudden glory of Schadenfreude. It was its infectious quality that made of laughter a medium of mutuality.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice.
Eric Hoffer