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A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.

— Eric Hoffer The Ordeal of Change (1963)

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Source: Ch. 12: "Concerning Individual Freedom". [In this passage "work, fight, talk, for liberty than have it" is a quotation of Lincoln Steffens from The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (1931), p. 635]
Work: The Ordeal of Change, 1963
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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Topics

Intelligence

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

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

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The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

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To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Eric Hoffer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.