Why should I know Eric Hoffer?

“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.”

“An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.”

“Anger is the prelude to courage.”

“Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.”

“Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.”

“How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.”

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

“It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millennia.”

“It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.”

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

“Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting.”

“Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.”

“Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.”

“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.”

“People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.”

“Propaganda serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.”

“Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.”

“Scratch an intellectual, and you find a would-be aristocrat who loathes the sight, the sound and the smell of common folk.”

“The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.”

“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”

“The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.”

“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day; we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.”

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

“To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.”

“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.”

“We feel free when we escape, even if it be from the frying pan into the fire.”

“We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.”

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

“When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.”

“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.”

“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.”

“You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.”