Eric Hoffer Quotes

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
Far more critical than what we know or what we don’t know is what we don’t want to know.
ERIC HOFFER

Philosophy Yourself
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
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
ERIC HOFFER

Choice Deep Freedom Philosophy
We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Deep Ourselves Philosophy Run
It is futile to judge a kind deed by its motives. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
ERIC HOFFER

Death Judgement Kind Kindness Motive Ourselves
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
ERIC HOFFER

Attraction Evil Power Promise Weakness
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one’s neighbor.
ERIC HOFFER

Easy Friendship Humanity Love
The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.
ERIC HOFFER

Doctor Humanity Room Sick Soul World
No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.
ERIC HOFFER

Born Evil Government Human Kindness Life Sick Willing
Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Eyes Fade Hide Imperfection Ourselves Reveal Scars
It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.
ERIC HOFFER

Excitement People Revolution Suffering Taste
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
When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Boredom Oneself People
Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.
ERIC HOFFER

Guilty Justice Right Voice
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
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

Famous American philosophers