Eric Hoffer Quotes

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

Charm Difference Growth Stupidity
Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
ERIC HOFFER

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

Betrayal Deal Hard Selfish Stupidity
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

Build Creation Image Learning Man Nature Perfection Technology
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
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
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
ERIC HOFFER

Belief Devil God Rise
There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
ERIC HOFFER

Judgement Nation Nature People
Communists are frustrated capitalists.
ERIC HOFFER

Attitude Character Frustration Identity One Liner
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
A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.
ERIC HOFFER

Feeling Freedom Opinion Willing
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
ERIC HOFFER

Deep Future Power Way
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
ERIC HOFFER

Creation Desire Inspirational Motivational Opportunities Talent Wisdom
To change everything, simply change your attitude.
ERIC HOFFER

Attitude Change Simplicity Yourself
Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.
ERIC HOFFER

God Identity Perspective Religious
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
ERIC HOFFER

Freedom Imitation People
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
ERIC HOFFER

Faith Hate Man People Yourself
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
The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.
ERIC HOFFER

Alone Country Easy History People
Children are the keys of paradise.
ERIC HOFFER

Children Heaven Key One Liner
Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
ERIC HOFFER

Change Deep Poison Truth Yourself
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
ERIC HOFFER

Corruption Deep Power Weakness
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
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
ERIC HOFFER

Age Busy Learning Ourselves Teaching Time Young
The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas.
ERIC HOFFER

Creation Creative Dance Ideas Mindset Philosophy Play
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
ERIC HOFFER

Frustration Greatness Oneself Philosophy Satisfaction Wisdom

Famous American philosophers