Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.
ERIC HOFFERThere is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
More Eric Hoffer Quotes
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Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
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People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
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We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
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One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.
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Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.
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The 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.
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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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It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor.
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The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
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Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
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The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.
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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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We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
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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.
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Unlike 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.
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Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.
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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.
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It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
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Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
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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.
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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.
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When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
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Far more critical than what we know or what we don’t know is what we don’t want to know.
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It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
ERIC HOFFER