The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.
Interpretation
People who lack self-esteem often focus more on undermining others than on improving themselves.
This quote by Eric Hoffer suggests that individuals who struggle with self-despisal tend to be more concerned with reducing the success and happiness of others rather than seeking to elevate their own status. When self-worth is elusive, feelings of envy can replace the normal human drive for personal growth and ambition, indicating a deeper psychological issue where individuals project their discontent onto others rather than addressing their own shortcomings.
In practice
In a discussion about personal development, one might say, 'As Eric Hoffer pointed out, the self-despisers focus on diminishing others rather than increasing themselves.'
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.
The natural state of this universe is attraction; and that is surely followed by an ultimate disunion.
Faith always contains an element of risk, of venture; and we are impelled to make the venture by the affinity and attraction which we feel in ourselves.
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
We are the most dangerous species of life on the planet, and every other species, even the earth itself, has cause to fear our power to exterminate. But we are also the only species which, when it chooses to do so, will go to great effort to save what it might destroy.
Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public think so.
The Impossible Generalized Man today is the critic who believes in loving those unworthy of love as well as those worthy -yet believes this only insofar as no personal risk is entailed. Meaning he loves no one, worthy or no. This is what makes him impossible.
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