Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Action is basically a reaction against loss of balance - a flailing of the arms to to regain one's balance. To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium.
Eric Hoffer
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Eric Hoffer
Age: 84 †
Born: 1898
Born: July 25
Died: 1983
Died: May 21
Philosopher
Psychologist
Writer
New York City
New York
Arms
Regain
Action
Equilibrium
Soul
Reaction
Must
Reactions
Upset
Basically
Balance
Flailing
Loss
Dispose
More quotes by Eric Hoffer
Intolerance is the ''Do Not Touch'' sign on something that cannot bear touching. We do not mind having our hair ruffled, but we will not tolerate any familiarity with the toupee which covers our baldness.
Eric Hoffer
The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.
Eric Hoffer
Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.
Eric Hoffer
Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.
Eric Hoffer
No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments.
Eric Hoffer
In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.
Eric Hoffer
There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
Eric Hoffer
It is part of the formidableness of a genuine mass movement that the self-sacrifice it promotes includes also a sacrifice of some of the moral sense, which cramps and restrains our nature.
Eric Hoffer
If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope.
Eric Hoffer
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.
Eric Hoffer
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
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
Eric Hoffer
Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole the church, party, nation and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society .
Eric Hoffer
The necessary has never been man's top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, man's greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities.
Eric Hoffer
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
The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious.
Eric Hoffer
Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
Eric Hoffer
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
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
However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing.
Eric Hoffer
