Quotes from Eric Hoffer

Another English revolution by the rich occurred at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was the Industrial Revolution. The breathtaking potentialities of mechanization set the minds of manufacturers and merchants on fire. They began a revolution "as extreme and radical as ever inflamed the minds of sectarians,"8 and in a relatively short time these respectable, Godfearing citizens changed the face of England beyond recognition. When

The man of action saves the movement from the suicidal dissensions and the recklessness of the fanatics. But his appearance usually marks the end of the dynamic phase of the movement. The war with the present is over. The genuine man of action is intent not on renovating the world but on possessing it. Whereas the life breath of the dynamic phase was protest and a desire for drastic change, the final phase is chiefly preoccupied with administering and perpetuating the power won.

They see their lives and the present as spoiled beyond remedy and they are ready to waste and wreck both: hence their recklessness

An American's hatred for a fellow American (for Hoover or Roosevelt) is far more virulent than any antipathy he can work up against foreigners.

new poor coming from a ruined middle class formed the chief support of the Nazi and Fascist revolutions.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

we can never have enough of that which we really don't want

Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even when men league themselves mightily together to promote tolerance and peace on earth, they are likely to be violently intolerant toward those not of a like mind.

A??r? insan,gerçek bir prensip adam? deÄŸildir.O bir amaca,amac?n doÄŸruluÄŸu ve kutsall??? nedeniyle deÄŸil,bir ÅŸeye tutunmak için duyduÄŸu ÅŸiddetli ihtiyaç nedeniyle sar?l?r.

The rabid extremist in present-day Asia is usually a man of some education who has a horror of manual labor and who develops a mortal hatred for a social order that denies him a position of command.

The discarded and rejected are often the raw material of a nation's future. The stone the builders reject becomes the cornerstone of a new world. A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, decent, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come. It was not the irony of history that the undesired in the countries of Europe should have crossed an ocean to build a new world on this continent. Only they could do it.

The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others.

The passion for proselytizing and the passion for world dominion are both perhaps symptoms of some serious deficiency at the center.

To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.

The beginning of thought is in disagreement, not only with others but also with ourselves.

The self-confidence of even the consistently successful is never absolute. They are never sure that they know all the ingredients which go into the making of their success. The

The inert mass of a nation, for instance, is in its middle section. The decent, average people who do the nation's work in cities and on the land are worked upon and shaped by minorities at both ends—the best and the worst.1

When we speak of authority at present we usually have in mind governmental authority. Actually, social order is most firm when imposed and maintained by the limited authorities of family, school, church, job, neighborhood and so on. In 1848 the Spaniard Donoso-Cortés predicted that "when religious discipline ceases to exist there cannot be enough of government; all despotisms will not be sufficient." This holds true to some extent of the other minor authorities.

There is no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice. That others have a just grievance against us is a more potent reason for hating them than that we have a just grievance against them. We do not make people humble and meek when we show them their guilt and cause them to be ashamed of themselves. We are more likely to stir their arrogance and rouse in them a reckless aggressiveness.

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

All active mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world.

With the coming of automation it may eventually be possible for a ruling intelligentsia to operate a country's economy without the aid of the masses, and it is legitimate to speculate on what the intellectual may be tempted to do with the masses once they become superfluous.

I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us.

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.