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Eric Hoffer Quotes

1902–1983 United States

Eric Hoffer (25 July 1902 – 21 May 1983) was an American writer on social and political philosophy. His first book, The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements (1951) is widely recognized as a classic on mass-movements and the psychological roots of fanaticism.

United States
Non-fiction authors
Philosophers
Psychologists
Science authors

Also known as: Hoffer, Eric

Random Eric Hoffer quote

218 quotes

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.

The Passionate State of Mind (1955)

Nothing is so unsettling to a social order as the presence of a mass of scribes without suitable employment and an acknowledged status.

The Ordeal of Change (1963)

Some people have no original ideas because they do not think well enough of themselves to consider their ideas worth noticing and developing.

Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

There can be no freedom without freedom to fail.

The Ordeal of Change (1963)

Rabid suspicion has nothing in it of skepticism. The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.

The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.

The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world.

The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.

The True Believer (1951)

The Savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor.

The Ordeal of Change (1963)

We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.

The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

To think for oneself is not only, as Gide said, counterrevolutionary but also apostasy and, at certain times, treason.

Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.

A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

The nature of a society is largely determined by the direction in which talent and ambition flow—by the tilt of the social landscape.

Men of talent have to be goaded to engage in creative work. The groans and laments of even the most gifted and prolific echo through the ages.

Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)

Basic human problems can have no final solutions.

The Temper of Our Time (1967)

Our greatest weariness comes from work not done.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Eric Hoffer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.