Quotessence
Home / Books / Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer

Book by Eric Hoffer · 9 quotes · Men, Self, Humans

Filter quotes by topic

Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer Quotes

“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.”

“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.”