black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

Eric Hoffer

It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
ERIC HOFFER

Death Judgement Kind Kindness Motive Ourselves
To change everything, simply change your attitude.
ERIC HOFFER

Attitude Change Simplicity Yourself
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
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
There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
ERIC HOFFER

Judgement Nation Nature People
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
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.
ERIC HOFFER

Born Evil Government Human Kindness Life Sick Willing
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.
ERIC HOFFER

Feeling Freedom Opinion Willing
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Lie Loud Ourselves
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 HOFFER

Build Creation Image Learning Man Nature Perfection Technology
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
ERIC HOFFER

Deep Future Power Way
The 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

Ability Capacity Ourselves Respect Tolerance
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
ERIC HOFFER

Deep Happiness Search Wisdom
Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.
ERIC HOFFER

Beginning Confidence Hate Heart Life Lost Way
To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.
ERIC HOFFER

Alive Feeling Inspirational Possible
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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Eric Hoffer Quotes