Top 500 Eric Hoffer Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.”

— Eric Hoffer

52. “No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.”

— Eric Hoffer

53. “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”

— Eric Hoffer

54. “Rudeness luxuriates in the absence of self-respect.”

— Eric Hoffer

55. “The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.”

— Eric Hoffer

56. “We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it.”

— Eric Hoffer

57. “One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.”

— Eric Hoffer

58. “Nothing comes easily. My work smells of sweat.”

— Eric Hoffer

59. “To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.”

— Eric Hoffer

60. “Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born of experience and the possession of skill. Where there is the necessary skill to move mountains there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.”

— Eric Hoffer

61. “The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. 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.”

— Eric Hoffer

62. “The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering and humbling of the self breeds pride and arrogance.”

— Eric Hoffer

63. “Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.”

— Eric Hoffer

64. “We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.”

— Eric Hoffer

65. “It is not at all simple to understand the simple.”

— Eric Hoffer

66. “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.””

— Eric Hoffer

67. “Creativity is discontent translated into arts.”

— Eric Hoffer

68. “The craving to change the world is perhaps a reflection of the craving to change ourselves.”

— Eric Hoffer

69. “To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.”

— Eric Hoffer

70. “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.”

— Eric Hoffer

71. “The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit the earth and the kingdom of heaven too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen will perish.”

— Eric Hoffer

72. “Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.”

— Eric Hoffer

73. “Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.”

— Eric Hoffer

74. “First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket.”

— Eric Hoffer

75. “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.”

— Eric Hoffer

76. “Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.”

— Eric Hoffer

77. “Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man’s spirit than when we win his heart. For we can win a man’s heart one day and lose it the next. But when we break a proud spirit we achieve something that is final and absolute.”

— Eric Hoffer

78. “Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create something in the image of nature is to create a machine, and it was by learning the inner working of nature that man became a builder of machines.”

— Eric Hoffer

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

— Eric Hoffer

80. “Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.”

— Eric Hoffer

81. “A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.”

— Eric Hoffer

82. “Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas .”

— Eric Hoffer

83. “We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for.”

— Eric Hoffer

84. “There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.”

— Eric Hoffer

85. “The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.”

— Eric Hoffer

86. “The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto.”

— Eric Hoffer

87. “A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one’s own life.”

— Eric Hoffer

88. “People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.”

— Eric Hoffer

89. “Woe to him inside a non-conformist clique who does not conform to non-conformity.”

— Eric Hoffer

90. “Man was nature’s mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.”

— Eric Hoffer

91. “No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people to bear witness against our inner judge, who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are.”

— Eric Hoffer

92. “The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.”

— Eric Hoffer

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

— Eric Hoffer

94. “That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor the flashes we are without growth and exhilaration.”

— Eric Hoffer

95. “Every extreme attitude is a fight from the self.”

— Eric Hoffer

96. “A good sentence is a key. It unlocks the mind of the reader.”

— Eric Hoffer

97. “Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person.”

— Eric Hoffer

98. “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.”

— Eric Hoffer

99. “If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.”

— Eric Hoffer

100. “We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the remarkable fact that many inventions had their birth as toys.”

— Eric Hoffer