Eric Hoffer Quotes on People (12 Quotes)

More significant than the fact that poets write abstrusely, painters paint abstractly, and composers compose unintelligible music is that people should admire what they cannot understand indeed, admire that which has no meaning or principle.

Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.

The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.

The superficiality of the American is the result of his hustling. It needs leisure to think things out it needs leisure to mature. People in a hurry cannot think, cannot grow, nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility.

The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep.

The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.

The only index by which to judge a government or a way of life is by the quality of the people it acts upon. No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion- it is an evil government.

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.

When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.

People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.