7 Eric Hoffer Quotes on Faith

Eric Hoffer quotes on faith

9. Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.

20. It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs.

44. A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

60. To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

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

99. The Savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets. There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience; a readiness to attempt the impossible; a bias for simple solutions - to cut the knot rather than unravel it; the viewing of compromise as surrender; the tendency to manipulate people and 'experiment with blood.' Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

190. Religion is not a matter of God, church, holy cause, etc. These are but accessories. The source of religious preoccupation is in the self, or rather the rejection of the self. Dedication is the obverse side of self-rejection. Man alone is a religious animal because, as Montaigne points out, 'it is a malady confined to man, and not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves.'