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.
My days among the dead are passed; Around me I behold, Where'er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old; My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day.
Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
It is our responsibility to explain to the public how an often unpredictable system of justice is one that serves a productive, civilized, but always evolving, society.
There is no peace, I'm sorry to say. We find it. We lose it. We find it again. We lose it again.
Never underestimate the human capacity for wishful thinking and willful blindness,' said Miles. Such as a whole society of people who became so wrapped up in avoiding death, they forgot to be alive?
Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.
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