Eric Hoffer ( 10 of 253 )
The readiness to praise others indicates a desire for excellence and perhaps an ability to realize it.
The readiness to praise others indicates a desire for excellence and perhaps an ability to realize it.
Take man's most fantastic invention- God. Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the image of what read more
Take man's most fantastic invention- God. Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it.
You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is read more
You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.
It is part of the formidableness of a genuine mass movement that the self-sacrifice it promotes includes also a sacrifice read more
It is part of the formidableness of a genuine mass movement that the self-sacrifice it promotes includes also a sacrifice of some of the moral sense which cramps and restrains our nature.
Though they seem at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the read more
Though they seem at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never meet.
All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, read more
All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and singlehearted allegiance.
Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the read more
Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay.
It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; read more
It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat; that they are chosen when they are shunned.
...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.
...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.
