Eric Hoffer

We know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude; and men are more ready to fight read more

We know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude; and men are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and beget action; they kill and revive, corrupt and cure. The "men-of-words"- priests, prophets, intellectuals- have played a more decisive role in history than military leaders, statesmen, and businessmen.

Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We read more

Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.

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 cannot hate those who we despise.

We cannot hate those who we despise.

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.