We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that everyone has personal struggles, but those who seek public attention for them can often become disruptive.
Eric Hoffer's quote speaks to the nature of human suffering and the different ways people cope with their private problems. While everyone experiences difficulties and personal challenges, the true trouble arises when individuals seek validation or solutions through public means, which can lead to disruptive behavior affecting others. It highlights the importance of addressing one's issues privately and reflects on the societal impact of seeking public cures for personal ailments.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about mental health awareness to emphasize the importance of private healing.
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.
There is one fairly good reason for fighting - and that is, if the other man starts it. You see, wars are a great wickedness, perhaps the greatest wickedness of a wicked species. They are so wicked that they must not be allowed. When you can be perfectly certain that the other man started them, then is the time when you might have a sort of duty to stop them.
Uncleanness is so much the attribute of officials that one could almost regard them as enormous parasites...In the same way the fathers in Kafka's strange families batten on their sons, lying on top of them like giant parasites. They not only prey upon their strength, but gnaw away at the sons' right to exist. The fathers punish, but they are at the same time the accusers. The sin of which they accuse their sons seems to be a kind of original sin.
The noble soul occupies itself with wisdom and friendship.
He that gives quickly gives twice.
I have a private theory, Sir, that there are no heroes and no monsters in this world. Only children should be allowed to use these words
The thing that will make the biggest difference to your business, your bank account, your health and your relationships in the next 12 months is your philosophy
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