We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us as rivals and trespassers. But we always look for allies when we hate.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that love often leads to rivalry, while hatred unites people against a common enemy.
In this quote, Eric Hoffer observes the complex nature of human emotions, highlighting how love can foster competition among those who care for each other, often viewing one another as rivals. Conversely, hate tends to create a sense of solidarity among individuals, as they bond over their shared disdain for a common target, illustrating how negative emotions can unify people more effectively than positive ones.
In practice
During a discussion about the challenges of romantic relationships, one might quote Hoffer to illustrate how love can lead to competition.
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.
If you treat every person you meet as if he or she were the most important person in the world, you'll communicate that he or she is somebody - to you.
She hardly ever thought of him. He had worn a place for himself in some corner of her heart, as a sea shell, always boring against the rock, might do. The making of the place had been her pain. But now the shell was safely in the rock. It was lodged, and ground no longer.
It's not sissy to show your feeling.
Every man knows that his highest purpose in life cannot be reduced to any particular relationship. If a man prioritizes his relationship over his highest purpose, he weakens himself, disserves the universe, and cheats his woman of an authentic man who can offer his full, undivided presence.
I pay very little regard...to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.
Empathy is like a universal solvent. Any problem immersed in empathy becomes soluble. It is effective as a way of anticipating and resolving interpersonal problems, whether this is a marital conflict, an international conflict, a problem at work, difficulties in a friendship, political deadlocks, a family dispute, or a problem with a neighbor.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.