Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create something in the image of nature is to create a machine, and it was by learning the inner working of nature that man became a builder of machines.
ERIC HOFFERThose who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.
More Eric Hoffer Quotes
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I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.
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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.
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It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
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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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The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.
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Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
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You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
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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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The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.
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When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
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There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
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It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor.
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The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
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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.
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Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
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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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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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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 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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Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
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We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
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A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
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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.
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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.
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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
ERIC HOFFER