Eric Hoffer - The Passionate State of Mind (1955)

110 Sourced Quotes

View all Eric Hoffer Quotes
Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story - a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.

Eric Hoffer
The fear of becoming a "has been" keeps some people from becoming anything.

Eric Hoffer
No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.

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

Eric Hoffer
Modern man is weighed down more by the burden of responsibility than by the burden of sin. We think him more a savior who shoulders our responsibilities than him who shoulders our sins. If instead of making decisions we have but to obey and do our duty, we feel it as a sort of salvation.

Eric Hoffer
There is a grandeur in the uniformity of the mass. When a fashion, a dance, a song, a slogan or a joke sweeps like wildfire from one end of the continent to the other, and a hundred million people roar with laughter, sway their bodies in unison, hum one song or break forth in anger and denunciation, there is the overpowering feeling that in this country we have come nearer the brotherhood of man than ever before.

Eric Hoffer
A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

Eric Hoffer
A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.

Eric Hoffer
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.

Eric Hoffer
The beginning of thought is in disagreement — not only with others but also with ourselves.

Eric Hoffer
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.

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

Eric Hoffer
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

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

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

Eric Hoffer
To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life.

Eric Hoffer
Compassion is probably the only antitoxin of the soul. Where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless. One would rather see the world run by men who set their hearts on toys but are accessible to pity, than by men animated by lofty ideals whose dedication makes them ruthless. In the chemistry of man's soul, almost all noble attributes — courage, honor, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc. — can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.

Eric Hoffer
Whenever we proclaim the uniqueness of a religion, a truth, a leader, a nation, a race, a part or a holy cause, we are also proclaiming our own uniqueness.

Eric Hoffer
The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.

Eric Hoffer
More! is as effective a revolutionary slogan as was ever invented by doctrinaires of discontent. The American, who cannot learn to want what he has, is a permanent revolutionary.

Eric Hoffer
Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled.

Eric Hoffer
There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book, painting a picture, and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement.

Eric Hoffer
Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.

Eric Hoffer
Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.

Eric Hoffer
Youth itself is a talent – a perishable talent.

Eric Hoffer
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

Eric Hoffer
The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new... is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.

Eric Hoffer
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.

Eric Hoffer
The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than of deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without.

Eric Hoffer
It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression. St. Vincent De Paul cautioned his disciples to deport themselves so that the poor "will forgive them the bread you give them."

Eric Hoffer