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.
Interpretation
Desiring more can lead to greater frustration than lacking basic needs.
This quote by Eric Hoffer highlights the paradox of human desire and dissatisfaction. It suggests that people often feel more frustrated when they have many possessions or blessings but still yearn for more, compared to those who have nothing but are content with their minimal needs. The essence of the quote centers around the concept that desire can breed dissatisfaction, often more intensely than the absence of material possessions.
In practice
In a motivational talk about overcoming feelings of inadequacy.
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 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.
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
You can't measure time by days, the way you measure money by dollars and cents, because dollars are all the same while every day is different and maybe every hour as well.
Man is not interesting without some imperfection
That is how heavy a secret can become. It can make blood flow easier than ink.
When mind controls man, it’s ... Bhoga (bondage). But when man controls mind, it’s...Yoga
It shouldn't be the consumer's responsibility to figure out what's cruel and what's kind, what's environmentally destructive and what's sustainable. Cruel and destructive food products should be illegal. We don't need the option of buying children's toys made with lead paint, or aerosols with chlorofluorocarbons, or medicines with unlabeled side effects. And we don't need the option of buying factory-farmed animals.
When individuals and nations have once got in their heads the abstract concept of full-blown liberty, there is nothing like it in its uncontrollable strength.
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