The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
ERIC HOFFERThe only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
ERIC HOFFERThe 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 HOFFERCommunists are frustrated capitalists.
ERIC HOFFERThe 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.
ERIC HOFFERA great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
ERIC HOFFERWhen people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
ERIC HOFFERUnlike 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.
ERIC HOFFERNever have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults.
ERIC HOFFERAbsolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
ERIC HOFFERIt is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor.
ERIC HOFFERThe 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.
ERIC HOFFERWe all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.
ERIC HOFFERThe 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 HOFFERNo 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 HOFFERIt is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
ERIC HOFFERThe capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor’s shortcomings as he is of his own.
ERIC HOFFER