Eric Hoffer ( 10 of 253 )
There is a close connection between lack of confidence and the passionate state of mind...
There is a close connection between lack of confidence and the passionate state of mind...
Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.
Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.
Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. read more
Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. He is both an unfinished animal and an unfinished man. It is this incurable unfinishedness which sets man apart from other living things. For, in the attempt to finish himself, man becomes a creator. Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing.
The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than read more
The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.
No one has a right to happiness.
No one has a right to happiness.
We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?
What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know. One read more
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know. One often obtains a clue to a person's nature by discovering the reasons for his or her imperviousness to certain impressions.
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.
