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Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

Eric Hoffer

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

Betrayal Deal Hard Selfish Stupidity
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
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 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
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
A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
ERIC HOFFER

Goodness Greatness Luck Man Right Time
Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
ERIC HOFFER

Charm Difference Growth Stupidity
Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
ERIC HOFFER

Build Empty Evil Greatness Hard Hide Ourselves Philosophy Pretend Ugly
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
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
ERIC HOFFER

Belief Devil God Rise
Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success.
ERIC HOFFER

Chance Failure Person Repeat Success
You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.
ERIC HOFFER

Enough Happiness Need Philosophy Wisdom Yourself
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
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

Life Live Obsession Passionate World
We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.
ERIC HOFFER

Cure Privacy Sick Trouble
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
ERIC HOFFER

Attitude Character Food Hands People

Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

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Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

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Popular Authors

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