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Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.

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
Affair
Management
Failure
Public
Qualification
Success
Qualifications
Seems
Affairs
Practicals
Practical

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It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
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Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.
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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.
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It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.
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Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
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Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
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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.
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In an adequate social order, the untalented should be able to acquire a sense of usefulness and of growth without interfering with the development of talent around them
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You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.
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This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter
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A man's worth is what he is divided by what he thinks he is.
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We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs subordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.
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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.
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Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
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The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.
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Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.
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An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity--the endless flow of life and death--than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous.
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Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
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It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.
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The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.
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