Home The Mine of Useless Information - everything you never needed to know!

Eric Hoffer Quotes

Showing page 3 of 6

« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next »


"Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible."

"We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind."

"There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his."

"It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites - opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity - where energies flow smoothly in one direction - there will be much doing but no music."

"Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart."

"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."

"We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand."

"It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny."

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

"Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder."

"Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice."

"Animals often strike us as passionate machines."

"The greatest weariness comes from work not done."

"Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat."

"The remarkable thing is that it is the crowded life that is most easily remembered. A life full of turns, achievements, disappointments, surprises, and crises is a life full of landmarks. The empty life has even its few details blurred, and cannot be remembered with certainty."

"We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about."

"When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths."

"When people are bored it is primarily with themselves."

"There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper."

"To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are."

© 2006 The Mine of Useless Information