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Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.

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
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
Learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
ERIC HOFFER

Beautiful Deal Equipment Existence Learning Truth World
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER

Easy Friendship Humanity Love
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Betrayal Help People
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 greatest weariness comes from work not done.
ERIC HOFFER

Greatness Work
There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
ERIC HOFFER

Judgement Nation Nature People
Anger is a prelude to courage.
ERIC HOFFER

Angry Courage One Liner
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
The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.
ERIC HOFFER

Future Learning World
The 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 HOFFER

Ability Achievement Country Education Important Live People Production Satisfaction
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
Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
ERIC HOFFER

Difference Equality Freedom Passion Reality
Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
ERIC HOFFER

Charm Difference Growth Stupidity
Communists are frustrated capitalists.
ERIC HOFFER

Attitude Character Frustration Identity One Liner
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
Death has but one terror, that it has no tomorrow.
ERIC HOFFER

Death Deep Future Terrorism
Unlike 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 HOFFER

Energy Existence Hate Human Life Pattern Strong Struggle Survive Weakness Win
We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Lie Loud Ourselves
The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.
ERIC HOFFER

Betrayal Deal Hard Selfish Stupidity
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
ERIC HOFFER

Imitation One Liner Rude Strength Weakness
The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.
ERIC HOFFER

Age Children Difference Education Human Learning People Togetherness True Willing
The 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 HOFFER

Ideas Leadership Play Quality World
Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success.
ERIC HOFFER

Chance Failure Person Repeat Success
Take 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 HOFFER

Atheist God Image Imitation Invention Man
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
ERIC HOFFER

Corruption Faith Power

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.

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Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.

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Popular Authors

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