You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
ERIC HOFFEROur 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.
More Eric Hoffer Quotes
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The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.
ERIC HOFFER -
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
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Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.
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A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.
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Learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
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Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.
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Communists are frustrated capitalists.
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The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
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The education explosion is producing a vast number of people who want to live significant, important lives but lack the ability to satisfy this craving for importance by individual achievement. The country is being swamped with nobodies who want to be somebodies.
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Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
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Anger is a prelude to courage.
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When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
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Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.
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To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
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One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
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Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
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No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.
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What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people’s faces as unfinished as their minds.
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Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
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Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
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We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
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It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
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Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults.
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I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
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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.
ERIC HOFFER