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.
Whenever and wherever men have engaged in the mindless slaughter of animals (including other men), they have often attempted to justify their acts by attributing the most vicious or revolting qualities to those they would destory; and the less reason there is for the slaughter, the greater the campaign for vilification.
Meditation is the royal road to the attainment of freedom, a mysterious ladder that reaches from earth to heaven, darkness to light, mortality to Immortality.
To practice Aikido fully you must calm the spirit and go back to the origin.
Our technological society has no longer any place in it for wisdom that seeks truth for its own sake, that seeks the fullness of being, that seeks to rest in an intuition of the very ground of all being. Without wisdom, the apparent opposition of action and contemplation, of work and rest, of involvement and detachment, can never be resolved.
Never was a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves.
The older I grow and the more I abandon myself to God's will, the less I value intelligence that wants to know and will that wants to do; and as the only element of salvation I recognize faith, which can wait patiently, without asking too many questions.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.