Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question.
ERIC HOFFERLanguage was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question.
ERIC HOFFERWe run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
ERIC HOFFERYou can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
ERIC HOFFERI 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.
ERIC HOFFERIt is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
ERIC HOFFEROur greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
ERIC HOFFERThe hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
ERIC HOFFERYou can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.
ERIC HOFFERWhen people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
ERIC HOFFERThere is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
ERIC HOFFERNature 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 HOFFERWhat monstrosities would walk the streets were some people’s faces as unfinished as their minds.
ERIC HOFFERThe 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 HOFFERTake man’s most fantastic invention- God. Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it.
ERIC HOFFERSelf-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.
ERIC HOFFERPassionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
ERIC HOFFER