Critically Thinking about Eric Hoffer: #2
An Underappreciated Everyday Person with Genius Insights
{This is a followup to Part 1.}
“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”
Just think about that. Doesn’t that ring true?
That is one of many insightful quotes from Eric Hoffer. Thomas Sowell (one of our most talented writers) authored a fine piece about Hoffer. Please read it!
The rest of my commentary will be selected quotes from Hoffer. I would find it difficult to improve on almost any of them.
There are so many that I decided to break them up into two random groups (see Part #1). That way I’m hoping that readers will not be overwhelmed, but take the time to reflect on the magnitude of this wisdom. This is group two…
Far more critical than what we know (or what we don't know) is what we don't want to know.
You can discover what your enemy fears most, by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.
The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.
One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
The average American of today bristles with indignation when he is told that his country was built, largely, by hordes of undesirables from Europe. Yet, far from being derogatory, this statement, if true, should be a cause for rejoicing, should fortify our pride in the stock from which we have sprung.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
Even the sober desire for progress is sustained by faith - faith in the intrinsic goodness of human nature and in the omnipotence of science.
It is the fate of every great achievement to be pounced upon by pedants and imitators who drain it of life and turn it into an orthodoxy which stifles all stirrings of originality.
When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom — freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.
The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.
Not all who are poor are frustrated.
Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems almost within reach.
To change everything, simply change your attitude.
Amen! See more in Part #1…
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PS — Some books by Eric Hoffer:
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951)
The Ordeal of Change (What Hoffer thought was his best book)
The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms
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Good work. Academy of ideas does amazing videos that draw on Hoffers work over time and applies it to the unfolding of modern day. Definitely a mind that has me wants to be introduced too for sure!
Thank you for these quotations. And for linking his other work. Admitting the lacuna in what I knew of Hoffer's work, I was only aware of The True Believer. Cheers!