It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the by-product of a stalemate between opposite vices.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that opposing forces can highlight each other's nature, resulting in a balance that fosters virtue.
In this quote, Eric Hoffer reflects on the idea that vices can serve as a necessary counterbalance to one another, implying that no singular virtue can exist without the presence of its opposing vice. This stalemate between conflicting moralities or behaviors creates an environment in which virtue can emerge, underscoring the complexity of human nature and the moral landscape we navigate.
In practice
This quote could be used in a debate about morality in a philosophy class.
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.
Government by idea tends to take in everything, to make the whole of society obedient to the idea. Spaces not so governed are unconquered, beyond the border, unconverted, a future danger.
Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.
The man who lives in division is living in death. He cannot find himself because he is lost; he has ceased to be a reality. The person he believes himself to be is a bad dream.
Magicians can do more by means of faith than physicians by the truth.
An individual gospel without a social gospel is a soul without a body and a social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost, the other a corpse.
There comes a time when the blankness of the future is just so extreme, it's like such a black wall of nothingness. Not of bad things like a cave full of monsters and so, you're afraid of entering it. It's just nothingness, the void, emptiness and it is just horrible. It's like contemplating a future-less future and so you just want to step out of it. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you.
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