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.
ERIC HOFFERIt is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
More Eric Hoffer Quotes
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Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.
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We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
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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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The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
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When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
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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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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.
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Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
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Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
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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.
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The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.
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Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
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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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The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
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The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.
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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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We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
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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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There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
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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.
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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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Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
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Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.
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Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
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The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
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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