A biography for Eric Hofferhasn’t been written yet.
“You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.”
“We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.”
“Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.”
“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.”
“The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.”
“It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.”
“One of the marks of a truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action - the ability to pass directly from thought to action.”
“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.”
“We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.”
“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.”
“Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.”
“There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.”
“When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.”
“Facts are counterrevolutionary.”
“Anger is the prelude to courage.”
“There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his.”
“There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet.”
“We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.”
“Youth itself is a talent, a perishable talent.”
“Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.”