There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
Interpretation
Understanding is not a requirement for coexistence in society.
Eric Hoffer suggests that human society is built not on complete understanding among its members, but rather on the ability to coexist and interact despite differences. This implies that acceptance and tolerance are vital for social harmony, even when individuals do not fully grasp each other's perspectives or experiences.
In practice
In a speech about community living during a local town meeting.
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.
Your master is he who controls that on which you have set your heart or wish to avoid.
The breath of an aristocrat is the death rattle of freedom.
Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific.
Whole people see and create wholeness wherever they go; split people see and create splits in everything and everybody.
He found himself still with too many questions and not enough answers.
How do you put everyone in the pool, so you have the right to dry yourself in the sun?
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