Eric Hoffer Quotes

The greatest weariness comes from work not done.

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.

There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.

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.

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.

If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope.

Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.

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.

Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.

Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.

Anger is the prelude to courage.

In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.