747 Quotes by Eric Hoffer

The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate.

Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.

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.

It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have "something worth fighting for,they do not feel like fighting.

The weakness of a soul is proportionate to the number of truths that must be kept from it.

Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom."

The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.

It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.

A compilation of what outstanding people said or wrote at the age of 20 would make a collection of asinine pronouncements.