Reflections on the Human Condition
We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it.
Eric Hoffer • Reflections on the Human Condition
If a society is to preserve its stability and a degree of continuity, it must know how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, attitudes, values, and fantasies on everyday life. At present, most nations are threatened more by their juveniles within than by enemies without.
Eric Hoffer • Reflections on the Human Condition
The spectacular expansion of the adolescent group combined with a failure of nerve in the adult population has profoundly changed the nature of our society.
Eric Hoffer • Reflections on the Human Condition
It has been said that all places are equidistant from heaven, and all eras equidistant from eternity.
Eric Hoffer • Reflections on the Human Condition
The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else—we are the busiest people in the world.
Eric Hoffer • Reflections on the Human Condition
A creative organizer creates an organization that can function well without him. When a genuine leader has done his work, his followers will say, “We have done it ourselves,” and feel that they can do great things without great leaders. With the noncreative it is the other way around: in whatever they do they arrange things so that they themselves
... See moreEric Hoffer • Reflections on the Human Condition
There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.
Eric Hoffer • Reflections on the Human Condition
A plant needs roots in order to grow. With man it is the other way around: only when he grows does he have roots and feels at home in the world.
Eric Hoffer • Reflections on the Human Condition
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
Eric Hoffer • Reflections on the Human Condition
One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world’s problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive—it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.