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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.

Eric Hoffer

The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
ERIC HOFFER

Angel Hate Human Man Nature Savior
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
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
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
ERIC HOFFER

Empty Hate Life Passionate Purpose
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
The 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 HOFFER

Atheist Care God Religious
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
ERIC HOFFER

Deep Future Power Way
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
ERIC HOFFER

Corruption Faith Power
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 hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
ERIC HOFFER

Blessing Count Hard Mathematics Ourselves
To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
ERIC HOFFER

Be Yourself Different Improvement Philosophy Transformation Wisdom
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 HOFFER

Action Age Human Invention Language Man Talk
To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little. If you have too little confidence, you will think you can’t learn. If you have too much, you will think you don’t have to learn.
ERIC HOFFER

Confidence Learning Need Thinking Yourself
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Lie Loud Ourselves
It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
ERIC HOFFER

Compassionate Justice Man Principle Protection
Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.
ERIC HOFFER

Enemy Ideal Kind Man Sacrifice

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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To know a person’s religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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