Eric Hoffer ( 10 of 253 )
A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical read more
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.
Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
There is no reason why humanity cannot be served equally by weighty and trivial motives.
There is no reason why humanity cannot be served equally by weighty and trivial motives.
There is perhaps no better way of measuring the natural endowment of a soul than by its ability to transmute read more
There is perhaps no better way of measuring the natural endowment of a soul than by its ability to transmute dissatisfaction into a creative impulse. The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.
Words have ruined more souls than any devil's agency.
Words have ruined more souls than any devil's agency.
In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes- courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on- read more
In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes- courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on- can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion, even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era read more
Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era of events. The new barbarism of the twentieth century is the echo of words bandied about by brilliant speakers and writers in the second half of the nineteenth.
It needs some intelligence to be truly selfish. The unintelligent can only be self-righteous.
It needs some intelligence to be truly selfish. The unintelligent can only be self-righteous.
There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self read more
There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They asked to be deceived.
We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical read more
We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs inordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.
