Eric Hoffer

Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.

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

It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities and talents.

When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.

When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.

The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.

The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.

The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

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

The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.

Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

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

We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.

A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.

Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.