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Eric Hoffer on Easter

1902–1983 United States

← All quotes by Eric Hoffer

7 quotes

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.

The True Believer (1951)

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.

The True Believer (1951)

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.

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

Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.

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

The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.

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

It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs.

Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Attribution

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