Eric Hoffer Quotes | GloryQuotes

Eric Hoffer Quotes About Spiritual

Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.

Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.

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

To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

Eric Hoffer Quotes About Nature

Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.

Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.

Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.

In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.

More Quotes by Eric Hoffer

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.

Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.

Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.

It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.

There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.

Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.

There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.

It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate.

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.

We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true; they ruin our dreams.

Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.

We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.

It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.

The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.

The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.

Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.

It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.

It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.

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

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

Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.

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

The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.

Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.

The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.

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

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.

It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.

Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.

When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.

The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.

Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.

The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

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

It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.

The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.

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

Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are.

We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.

Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.

It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.

Browse 115 quotes attributed to Eric Hoffer, listed in the source data as a American Writer, organized around themes such as Spiritual, Nature, Life. Use the topic links to explore similar quotes, or browse the full author collection in one place.