747 Quotes by Eric Hoffer

To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalizes – we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first young people in the world.

Action is basically a reaction against loss of balance – a flailing of the arms to to regain one’s balance. To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium.

A man’s soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific.

Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts.

When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else – we are the busiest people in the world.

What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people’s faces as unfinished as their minds.

Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story – a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.

The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth.

The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like giving a hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. 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.