Eric Hoffer ( 10 of 253 )
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.
Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.
Thus we find that people who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossible. They read more
Thus we find that people who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossible. They become responsive to grandiose schemes, and will display unequaled steadfastness, formidable energies and a special fitness in the performance of tasks which would stump superior people. It seems paradoxical that defeat in dealing with the possible should embolden people to attempt the impossible, but a familiarity with the mentality of the weak reveals that what seems a path of daring is actually an easy way out: It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings. For when we fail in attaining the impossible we are justified in attributing it to the magnitude of the task.
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim read more
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.
The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will and meanness in their fellow read more
The awareness of their individual blemishes and shortcomings inclines the frustrated to detect ill will and meanness in their fellow men. Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.
We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to attain excellence. To discover what a read more
We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to attain excellence. To discover what a man truly craves but knows he cannot have we must find the field in which he advocates absolute equality. By this test Communists are frustrated Capitalists.
Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which read more
Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.
The well-adjusted make poor prophets.
The well-adjusted make poor prophets.
A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.
A war is not won if the defeated enemy has not been turned into a friend.
It is not actual suffering but a taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
It is not actual suffering but a taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
