Book detail: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
This book compiles a selection of Eric Hoffer's most insightful essays and aphorisms, offering readers a glimpse into his profound thoughts on human nature, society, and the complexities of the world.
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“A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaningless of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring upon them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“In man's life, the absence of an essential component usually leads to the adoption of a substitute. The substitute is usually embraced with vehemence and extremism, for we have to convince ourselves that what we took as second choice is the best there ever was. Thus blind faith is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves; insatiable desire a substitute for hope; accumulation a substitute for growth; fervent hustling a substitute for purposeful action; and pride a substitute for an unattainable self-respect.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Whoever originated the cliche that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the nature of evil and very little about human beings.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it given a more or less free hand in the cultural field. By frustrating the scribe's craving for commanding action, the trader draws upon himself the scribe's wrath and scorn.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“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.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“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.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The burning conviction that we have a holy duty towards others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like a giving hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Only the individual who has come to terms with his self can have a dispassionate attitude toward the world.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The craving to change the world is perhaps a reflection of the craving to change ourselves.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Nature attains perfection, but man never does. There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished. He is both an unfinished animal and an unfinished man. It is this incurable unfinishedness which sets man apart from other living things. For, in the attempt to finish himself, man becomes a creator. Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Rudeness luxuriates in the absence of self-respect.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than a deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“All prayers and hopes are a reaching-out for coincidences.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The well-adjusted make poor prophets.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“We often use strong language not to express a powerful emotion but to evoke it in us.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“It is the acquisition of skills in particular, irrespective of their utility, that is potent in making life meaningful. Since man has no inborn skills, the survival of the species has depended on the ability to acquire and perfect skills. Hence the mastery of skills is a uniquely human activity and yields deep satisfaction.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“There is a close connection between lack of confidence and the passionate state of mind.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born of experience and the possession of skill. Where there is the necessary skill to move mountains there is no need for the faith that moves mountains.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Crude absurdities, trivial nonsense, and sublime truths are equally potent in readying people for self-sacrifice if they are accepted as the sole, eternal truth”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“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.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Spiritual stagnation ensues when man's environment becomes unpredictable or when his inner life is made wholly predictable.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Words have ruined more souls than any devil's agency.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Every device employed to bolster individual freedom must have as its chief purpose the impairment of the absoluteness of power. The indications are that such an impairment is brought about not by strengthening the individual and pitting him against the possessors of power, but by distributing and diversifying power and pitting one category or unit of power against the other. Where power is one, the defeated individual, however strong and resourceful, can have no refuge and no recourse.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. ... Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor. In a Communist state love of neighbor may be classed as counter-revolutionary.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor the flashes we are without growth and exhilaration.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“The ignorant are a reservoir of daring. It almost seems that those who have yet to discover the known are particularly equipped for dealing with the unknown. The unlearned have often rushed in where the learned feared to tread, and it is the credulous who are tempted to attempt the impossible. They know not whither they are going, and give chance a chance.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Faith is primarily a process of identification; the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“There is a radicalism in all getting, and a conservatism in all keeping. Lovemaking is radical, while marriage is conservative.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Nature attains perfection, but man never does.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Language was invented to ask questions.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer
“To lose one's life is but to lose the present; and, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much.”
Source: Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer