Eric Hoffer (1902–83) was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that his book The Ordeal of Change was his finest work. In 2001, the Eric Hoffer Award was established in his honor with permission granted by the Eric Hoffer Estate in 2005.
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With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Solitude
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Deception/Lying, Power
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Evil
It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment.
—Eric Hoffer
The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.
—Eric Hoffer
We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
—Eric Hoffer
You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.
—Eric Hoffer
If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must know how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, attitudes, values and fantasies on everyday life.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Youth
To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Motivation
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Happiness
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Mistakes
The aim of a religious movement is to inflict a malady on society, then offer the religion as a cure.
—Eric Hoffer
Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Sin
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Failures, Mistakes
There is probably an element of malice in the readiness to overestimate people; we are laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.
—Eric Hoffer
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Optimism, Kindness, Positive Attitudes, Compassion, Health, Service
There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Freedom, Failure, Wisdom
The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and most compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capabilities and talents.
—Eric Hoffer
It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.
—Eric Hoffer
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
Topics: The Present, Future
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
—Eric Hoffer
Treasure the memories of past misfortunes; they constitute our bank of fortitude.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties
Fear of becoming a ‘has-been’ keeps some people from becoming anything.
—Eric Hoffer
Topics: Fear
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- William James American Philosopher
- John Dewey American Philosopher
- Mortimer J. Adler American Philosopher, Educator
- Charles Sanders Peirce American Philosopher
- Will Durant American Historian
- Henry David Thoreau American Philosopher
- George Santayana Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
- Rollo May American Philosopher
- Ralph Waldo Emerson American Philosopher
- Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian Philosopher