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We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

Eric Hoffer

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.
ERIC HOFFER

Achievement Future Greatness Leaving Life People Reason Yourself
Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
ERIC HOFFER

Blame Fair Play Wrong
A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
ERIC HOFFER

Goodness Greatness Luck Man Right Time
To know a person’s religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
ERIC HOFFER

Brand Faith Listening Need Person Professional Religion Tolerance
To change everything, simply change your attitude.
ERIC HOFFER

Attitude Change Simplicity Yourself
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
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
Communists are frustrated capitalists.
ERIC HOFFER

Attitude Character Frustration Identity One Liner
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
It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
ERIC HOFFER

Difference Doubt Fight Freedom Oppression Power Pride
Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.
ERIC HOFFER

End Goodness Military Rise
The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.
ERIC HOFFER

Future Learning World
We see through others only when we see through ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Character Philosophy See Wisdom Yourself
To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.
ERIC HOFFER

Alive Feeling Inspirational Possible
The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.
ERIC HOFFER

Betrayal Deal Hard Selfish Stupidity
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

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

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We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

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