Quote

It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.

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
Cannot
Much
Good
Despise
Easier
Enemy
Hate

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

Image
The desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection- real or imagined- by them.
Eric Hoffer
Image
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family-what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated?
Eric Hoffer
Image
Those who feel guilty are afraid and those who are afraid somehow feel guilty. To the onlooker, too, the fearful seem guilty.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When the Greeks said, Whom the gods love die young, they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested, that those favored by the gods stay young till the day they die young and playful.
Eric Hoffer
Image
However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
Eric Hoffer
Image
It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.
Eric Hoffer
Image
No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion it is an evil government.
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
Nothing so offends the doctrinaire intellectual as our ability to achieve the momentous in a matter-of-fact way, unblessed by words.
Eric Hoffer
Image
The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me.
Eric Hoffer
Image
To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.
Eric Hoffer
Image
There is a time when the word eventually has the soothing effect of a promise, and a time when the word evokes in us bitterness and scorn.
Eric Hoffer
Image
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.
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
The superficiality of many is a result of deep fears. It takes spare time to think things out it takes free time to mature. People in a hurry may not think well or mature well. The next best is a state of perpetual puerility.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. The crypto-businessman is the true revolutionary in a Communist country.
Eric Hoffer
Image
When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest people in the world.
Eric Hoffer
Image
Naivete in grownups is often charming but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Eric Hoffer