Top 60 Benjamin Hoff Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I think, therefore I am confused.”

— Benjamin Hoff

2. “When you know and respect your Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don’t belong.”

— Benjamin Hoff

3. “Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, ‘This isn’t supposed to be happening this way,’ and trying harder to make it happen some other way.”

— Benjamin Hoff

4. “The wise know their limitations; the foolish do not.”

— Benjamin Hoff

5. “The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can’t save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.”

— Benjamin Hoff

6. “A well-frog cannot imagine the ocean, nor can a summer insect conceive of ice. How then can a scholar understand the Tao? He is restricted by his own learning.”

— Benjamin Hoff

7. “When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.”

— Benjamin Hoff

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8. “A clever mind is not a heart. Knowledge doesn’t really care, wisdom does.”

— Benjamin Hoff

9. “The masters of life know the way, for they listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond cleverness and knows beyond knowledge.”

— Benjamin Hoff

10. “Without difficulties, life would be like a stream without rocks and curves – about as interesting as concrete. Without problems, there can be no personal growth, no group achievement, no progress of humanity. But what mattes about problems is what one does with them.”

— Benjamin Hoff

Featured in: Personal Growth Quotes

11. “Unfortunately complaining is one thing Eeyores are not afraid to do. They grudgingly carry their thimbles to the Fountain of Life, then mumble and grumble that they weren’t given enough.”

— Benjamin Hoff

12. “Everything has its own place and function. That applies to people, although many don’t seem to realize it, stuck as they are in the wrong job, the wrong marriage, or the wrong house. When you know and respect your Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don’t belong.”

— Benjamin Hoff

13. “And when you try too hard, it doesn’t work. Try grabbing something quickly and precisely with a tensed-up arm; then relax and try it again. Try doing something with a tense mind. The surest way to become Tense, Awkward, and Confused is to develop a mind that tries too hard-one that thinks too much.”

— Benjamin Hoff

14. “Inner Nature, when relied on, cannot be fooled. But many people do not look at it or listen to it, and consequently do not understand themselves very much. Having little understanding of themselves, they have little respect for themselves, and are therefore easily influenced by others.”

— Benjamin Hoff

15. “The surest way to become Tense, Awkward, and Confused is to develop a mind that tries too hard – one that thinks too much.”

— Benjamin Hoff

16. “You’d be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are.”

— Benjamin Hoff

17. “In the story of the Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized he was a Swan. Each of us has something Special, a Swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But until we recognize that it’s there, what can we do but splash around, treading water?”

— Benjamin Hoff

18. “No matter how useful we may be, sometimes it takes us a while to recognize our own value.”

— Benjamin Hoff

19. “Sourness and bitterness come from the interfering and unappreciative mind. Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet. That is the message of The Vinegar Tasters.”

— Benjamin Hoff

20. “Cleverness, as usual, takes all the credit it possibly can. But it’s not the clever mind that’s responsible when things work out. It’s the mind that sees what’s in front of it, and follows the nature of things.”

— Benjamin Hoff

21. “From the Taoist point of view, the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness.”

— Benjamin Hoff

22. “So quite often, the easiest way to get rid of a Minus is to change it to a Plus. Sometimes you will find that characteristics you try hard to eliminate eventually come back, anyway. But if you do the right things, they will come back in the right ways. And sometimes those very tendencies that you dislike the most can show up in the right time to save your life, somehow.”

— Benjamin Hoff

23. “Do you want to be really happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you’ve got. Do you want to be really miserable? You can begin by being discontented.”

— Benjamin Hoff

24. “When we give up our images of self-importance and our ideas of what should be, we can help things become what they need to be.”

— Benjamin Hoff

25. “Things may get a little odd at times, but they work out. You don’t have to try very hard to make them work out; you just let them.”

— Benjamin Hoff

26. “As we have likely recognized by now, no two snowflakes, trees, or animals are alike. No two people are the same, either. Everything has its own Inner Nature.”

— Benjamin Hoff

27. “In order to take control of our lives and accomplish something of lasting value, sooner or later we need to learn to believe. We don’t need to shift our responsibilities onto the shoulders of some deified spiritual superman or sit around and wait for fate to come knocking on our door. We simply need to believe in the power that’s within us, and use it. When we do that, and stop imitating others and competing against them, things begin to work for us.”

— Benjamin Hoff

28. “Knowledge and cleverness tend to concern themselves with the wrong sorts of things, and a mind confused by knowledge, cleverness and abstract ideas tends to go chasing after things that don’t matter, or that don’t even exists, instead of seeing, appreciating, and making use of what is fit in front of it.”

— Benjamin Hoff

29. “A Weakness of some sort can do you a big favor, if you acknowledge that it’s there. The same goes for one’s limitations, whether Tiggers know it or not- and Tiggers usually don’t. That’s the trouble with Tiggers, you know: they can do everything. Very unhealthy.”

— Benjamin Hoff

30. “To Buddha, the second figure in the painting, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering.”

— Benjamin Hoff

31. “What we need to do is recognize inner nature and work with things as they are. When we don’t we get in trouble.”

— Benjamin Hoff

32. “Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will choose the way of Pooh. As if from far away, it calls to us with the voice of a child’s mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through the forest.”

— Benjamin Hoff

33. “Now one rather annoying thing about scholars is that they are always using Big Words that some of us can’t understand... and one sometimes gets the impression that those intimidating words are there to keep us from understanding. That way, the Scholars can appear Superior, and will not likely be suspected of Not Knowing Something.”

— Benjamin Hoff

34. “There is more to knowing than just being correct.”

— Benjamin Hoff

35. “Knowledge and Experience do not necessarily speak the same language.”

— Benjamin Hoff

36. “In the Age of Perfect Virtue, men lived among the animals and birds as members of one large family. There were no distinctions between superior and inferior to separate one man or species from another. All retained their natural Virtue and lived in a state of pure simplicity.”

— Benjamin Hoff

37. “Those who think that the rewarding things in life are somewhere over the rainbow ‘burn their toast a lot,’ said Pooh.”

— Benjamin Hoff

38. “A way of life that keeps saying ‘Around the next corner, above the next step,’ works against the natural order of things and makes it so difficult to be happy and good.”

— Benjamin Hoff

39. “The Universe knows what it’s doing. So don’t develop a big ego, and don’t be afraid.”

— Benjamin Hoff

40. “Enjoy the simple, the natural and the plain. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work.”

— Benjamin Hoff

41. “Do you really want to be happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you’ve got.”

— Benjamin Hoff

42. “Cleverness, after all, has its limitations. Its mechanical judgments and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn’t look very deeply into things to begin with.”

— Benjamin Hoff

43. “Through working in harmony with life’s circumstances, Taoist understanding changes what others may percieve as negative into something positive.”

— Benjamin Hoff

44. “Like silence after noise, or cool, clear water on a hot, stuffy day, Emptiness cleans out the messy mind and charges up the batteries of spiritual energy. Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness.”

— Benjamin Hoff

45. “Wisdom, Happiness, and Courage are not waiting somewhere out beyond sight at the end of a straight line; they’re part of a continuous cycle that begins right here. They’re not only the ending, but the beginning as well.”

— Benjamin Hoff

46. “But isn’t the knowledge that comes from experience more valuable than the knowledge that doesn’t? It seems fairly obvious to some of us that a lot of scholars need to go outside and sniff around – walk through the grass, talk to the animals. That sort of thing.”

— Benjamin Hoff

47. “Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet.”

— Benjamin Hoff

48. “As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simple-minded does not necessarily mean stupid.”

— Benjamin Hoff

49. “The play-it-safe pessimists of the world never accomplish much of anything, because they don’t look clearly and objectively at situations, they don’t recognize or believe in their own abilities to overcome even the smallest amount of risk.”

— Benjamin Hoff

50. “Under Confucianism, the use of precisely measured court music, prescribed steps, actions, and phrases all added up to an extremely complex system of rituals, each used for a particular purpose at a particular time.”

— Benjamin Hoff