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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.

Eric Hoffer

A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
ERIC HOFFER

Goodness Greatness Luck Man Right Time
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
ERIC HOFFER

Belief Devil God Rise
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

Frustration Greatness Oneself Philosophy Satisfaction Wisdom
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
ERIC HOFFER

Age Busy Learning Ourselves Teaching Time Young
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 trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.
ERIC HOFFER

Change Children Education Student Trouble
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Betrayal Help People
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.
ERIC HOFFER

Age Children Difference Education Human Learning People Togetherness True Willing
Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.
ERIC HOFFER

Enemy Ideal Kind Man Sacrifice
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

Country Government High Intellectual Power Production
Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.
ERIC HOFFER

End Goodness Military Rise
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Lie Loud Ourselves
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
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.
ERIC HOFFER

Business Character Man Mindset People Worth
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
ERIC HOFFER

Attraction Evil Power Promise Weakness
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

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 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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Popular Authors

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