That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them.
Interpretation
Inner agreement with prejudice can be damaging to those who are persecuted.
This quote by Eric Hoffer emphasizes the psychological toll that societal prejudice can have on individuals who are persecuted. It suggests that when victims of prejudice begin to internalize the negative beliefs held against them, they suffer a deeper corrosion of their soul, as they may lose their sense of self-worth and identity in the face of such discrimination.
In practice
During a speech on social justice, highlighting the importance of self-acceptance in the face of discrimination.
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.
Men will be just to men when they are kind to animals.
Philosophers say the Soul is double-faced, her upper face gazes at God all the time and her lower face looks somewhat down, informing the senses; and the upper face, which is the summit of the soul, is in eternity and has nothing to do with time: it knows nothing of time or of body.
A riot is the language of the unheard. On blacks in America; address at Birmingham AL
My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude.
She felt, as she felt so often with Murphy, spattered with words that went dead as soon as they sounded; each word obliterated, before it had time to make sense, by the word that came next; so that in the end she did not know what had been said. It was like difficult music heard for the first time.
In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do.
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