To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little. If you have too little confidence, you will think you can’t learn. If you have too much, you will think you don’t have to learn.
ERIC HOFFER
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.
More Eric Hoffer Quotes
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To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little. If you have too little confidence, you will think you can’t learn. If you have too much, you will think you don’t have to learn.
ERIC HOFFER -
A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
ERIC HOFFER -
The ratio between supervisory and producing personnel is always highest where the intellectuals are in power. In a Communist country it takes half the population to supervise the other half.
ERIC HOFFER -
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
ERIC HOFFER -
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.
ERIC HOFFER -
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.
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.
ERIC HOFFER -
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.
ERIC HOFFER -
All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.
ERIC HOFFER -
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
ERIC HOFFER -
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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A 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 HOFFER -
For 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 -
Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.
ERIC HOFFER -
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.
ERIC HOFFER -
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