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

Eric Hoffer

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.
ERIC HOFFER

Feeling Freedom Opinion Willing
Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.
ERIC HOFFER

Enemy Ideal Kind Man Sacrifice
Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question.
ERIC HOFFER

Action Age Human Invention Language Man Talk
Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Deep Faith Lost Wisdom
Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
ERIC HOFFER

Charm Difference Growth Stupidity
It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
ERIC HOFFER

Difference Doubt Fight Freedom Oppression Power Pride
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
ERIC HOFFER

Corruption Faith Power
The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.
ERIC HOFFER

Deep Equality Expose Meaning Ourselves Passion Perspective
Communists are frustrated capitalists.
ERIC HOFFER

Attitude Character Frustration Identity One Liner
Rudeness is the weak man’s limitation of strength.
ERIC HOFFER

Limitation Man Rude Strength Weakness
Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults.
ERIC HOFFER

Adult Listening Serious Young
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

Doctor Humanity Room Sick Soul World
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
ERIC HOFFER

Attitude Character Food Hands People
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
ERIC HOFFER

Choice Deep Freedom Philosophy
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

Children Man Misery Mom Old Woman Young
The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor’s shortcomings as he is of his own.
ERIC HOFFER

Ability Capacity Ourselves Respect Tolerance

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

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

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Popular Authors

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