The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
ERIC HOFFERThe only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
ERIC HOFFERAdd a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
ERIC HOFFERThe central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.
ERIC HOFFERTake 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.
ERIC HOFFERThe search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
ERIC HOFFERWe run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
ERIC HOFFERA passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one’s own life.
ERIC HOFFERWe can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
ERIC HOFFERThe 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 HOFFERThe hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.
ERIC HOFFERIt is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
ERIC HOFFERYou can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
ERIC HOFFERPropaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
ERIC HOFFERUnlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence.
ERIC HOFFERI 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.
ERIC HOFFERFor many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life.
ERIC HOFFER