How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the stark reality that not many people are deeply missed after they pass away, affecting our view of the world.
Eric Hoffer's quote reflects on the superficiality of many relationships and the impact of death on our emotional state. It suggests that for most people, the absence of others does not significantly alter our lives or diminish our enjoyment, prompting a reflection on the depth and authenticity of our connections with those around us.
In practice
During a memorial service to reflect on the impact of a loved one's passing.
Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family-what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated?
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
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.
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about.
Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.
There can be a true grandeur in any degree of submissiveness, because it springs from loyalty to the laws and to an oath, and not from baseness of soul.
To retire is the beginning of death.
My deceased patients have taught me over the years to believe in the glass half full, to make good use of the time we have, to be generous - that was their lesson for the Uber-mind, and it was free. 'Do that,' they said, 'and then perhaps death shall have no dominion.'
Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
Superstition is an enemy to civil liberty.
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