Guess quote

Eric Hoffer [1902-1983] American

Rank: 101
Writer, Philosopher

Eric Hoffer was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983.

Faith, Failure, Fear, Power, Age, Alone, Change, Dreams, Family, Future, Hope, Knowledge, Leadership, Learning, Love, Religion, Space, Strength, Teacher, Thankful, Trust

Quote	Tags	Rank
Children are the keys of paradise.	Family	101
Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.	Trust	102
Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.	Hope	103
There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.		104
We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.		105
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.		106
The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.		107
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.	Failure	108
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.	Strength	109
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.	Love	110
An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.		111
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.	Future, Power	112
We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.		113
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.		114
Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.		115
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.	Thankful	116
In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.	Change, Learning	117
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.	Age, Teacher	118
Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat.		119
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.		120
It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words.		121
It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities and talents.		122
The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.		123
Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.		124
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.		125
Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.		126
It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.		201
It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.		202
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.		203
The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.	Fear	204
Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.		205
The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.		206
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.		207
The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.		208
Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors; they can be smelled.		209
You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.		210
Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.		211
The greatest weariness comes from work not done.		212
A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.		213
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.		214
Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.	Space	215
What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?		216
With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.		217
Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.		218
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.	Alone	219
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.		220
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.		221
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.		222
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.		223
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.		224
We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.	Knowledge	225
Social improvement is attained more readily by a concern with the quality of results than with the purity of motives.		226
Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.	Faith	301
We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.		302
Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.		303
The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.		304
Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.	Leadership	305
It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.		306
There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.		307
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.		308
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.		309
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.		310
We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.	Fear	311
It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans. America needs new immigrants to love and cherish it.		312
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.	Faith, Religion	313
Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.	Faith	314
Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.		315
Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent.		316
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.		317
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.		318
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.		319
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.		320
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.	Power	321
Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.		322
To the old, the new is usually bad news.		323
The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.		324
When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.		325
A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.		326
It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate.		401
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.	Failure	402
Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.		403
A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.		404
The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.		405
There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.		406
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.		407
Facts are counterrevolutionary.		408
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.		409
The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.		410
There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.		411
To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.		412
Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.		413
Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.		414
One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action.		415
We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true; they ruin our dreams.	Dreams	416
A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.		417
Unpredictability, too, can become monotonous.		418
We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.		419
The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.		420
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.		421
Every intense desire is perhaps a desire to be different from what we are.		422
We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.		423
When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.		424
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.		425
There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.		426
A man by himself is in bad company.		501
A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.		502
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.		503
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.		504
It would be difficult to exaggerate the degree to which we are influenced by those we influence.		505
Animals often strike us as passionate machines.		506
It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.		507
The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.		508
Sometimes we feel the loss of a prejudice as a loss of vigor.		509
It is remarkable by how much a pinch of malice enhances the penetrating power of an idea or an opinion. Our ears, it seems, are wonderfully attuned to sneers and evil reports about our fellow men.		510

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