We know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude; and men are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and beget action; they kill and revive, corrupt and cure. The "men-of-words"- priests, prophets, intellectuals- have played a more decisive role in history than military leaders, statesmen, and businessmen.

Eric Hoffer

Categorized in : Moving Military Fighting

I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.

Eric Hoffer

tyrants fate hands

The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.

Eric Hoffer

wisdom children knowledge

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

Eric Hoffer

hype doe people

Learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

Eric Hoffer

motivational inspirational life

A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life

Eric Hoffer

passionate obsession world

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.

Eric Hoffer

gratitude thankful thank-you

You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.

Eric Hoffer

simple being-happy happiness

It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression.

Eric Hoffer

power winning spring

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

Eric Hoffer

motivational inspirational life

Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.

Eric Hoffer

hate lost way

No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.

Eric Hoffer

ill-will government kindness

When watching men of power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they know it or not, their main purpose is the elimination or neutralization of the independent individual- the independent voter, consumer, worker, owner, thinker- and that every device they employ aims at turning men into a manipulable animated instrument which is Aristotle's definition of a slave.

Eric Hoffer

independent mind men

Rudeness is the weak man's limitation of strength.

Eric Hoffer

rudeness weak-man men

One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.

Eric Hoffer

adults differences wisdom

The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. In an affluent society, the alienated who clamor for power are largely untalented people who cannot make use of the unprecedented opportunities for self-realization, and cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self.

Eric Hoffer

self opportunity people

To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little. If you have too little confidence, you will think you can't learn. If you have too much, you will think you don't have to learn.

Eric Hoffer

degrees needs thinking

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.

Eric Hoffer

different change inspirational

Woe to him inside a non-conformist clique who does not conform to non-conformity.

Eric Hoffer

woe doe character

It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.

Eric Hoffer

compassion justice men

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

Eric Hoffer

halloween fear clever