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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

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
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
Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
ERIC HOFFER

Corruption Faith Power
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
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
ERIC HOFFER

Reality Understand
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
ERIC HOFFER

Corruption Deep Power 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 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
Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Betrayal Help People
I 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 HOFFER

Best Education Fate Forget Freedom Gift Hands Mad Myself Nation Surrender Willing World
There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
ERIC HOFFER

Doubt Humility Life Practice Selfish Worth
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
ERIC HOFFER

Choice Goodness Habit Live Possible
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
It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
ERIC HOFFER

Excitement People Revolution Suffering Taste
Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.
ERIC HOFFER

Guilty Justice Right Voice
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
ERIC HOFFER

Freedom Imitation People

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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