Eric Hoffer ( 10 of 253 )
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.
A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.
A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.
There is apparently no surer way of turning a thing into its opposite than by exaggerating it.
There is apparently no surer way of turning a thing into its opposite than by exaggerating it.
In human affairs, the best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from.
In human affairs, the best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from.
We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us read more
We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us as rivals and trespassers. But we always look for allies when we hate.
The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a read more
The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.
We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do read more
To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.
Conservatism is sometimes a symptom of sterility. Those who have nothing in them that can grow and develop must cling read more
Conservatism is sometimes a symptom of sterility. Those who have nothing in them that can grow and develop must cling to what they have in beliefs, ideas and possessions. The sterile radical, too, is basically conservative. He is afraid to let go of the ideas and beliefs he picked up in his youth lest his life be seen as empty and wasted.
Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think read more
Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.
