Skip to content

Quotes from Reflections on the Human Condition — Eric Hoffer

1902–1983 United States

← All quotes by Eric Hoffer

32 quotes

Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

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)

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

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Our greatest weariness comes from work not done.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor the flashes we are without growth and exhilaration.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Since man has to finish and “make” himself, there are unavoidably greater differences between individual men than between individual animals.

Reflections on the Human Condition (2006)

The ignorant are a reservoir of daring.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

It is the individual only who is timeless.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question.

Reflections on the Human Condition (2006)

To the excessively fearful the chief characteristic of power is its arbitrariness. Man had to gain enormously in confidence before he could conceive an all-powerful God who obeys his own laws.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.

Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)

Attribution

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