10 Eric Hoffer Quotes on Philosophy

Eric Hoffer quotes on philosophy

35. Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.

41. God alone is satisfied with what He is and can proclaim: 'I am what I am.' Unlike God, man strives with all his might to be what he is not. He incessantly proclaims: 'I am what I am not.'

56. No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.

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

88. Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

125. I am more and more convinced that taking life over-seriously is a frivolous thing. There is an affected self-dramatizing in the brooding over one's prospects and destiny. The trifling attitude of an Ecclesiastes is essentially sober and serious. It is in closer touch with the so-called eternal truths than are the most penetrating metaphysical probing and the most sensitive poetic insights.

127. The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time - not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me.

158. I could never figure out - or probably did not take the trouble to figure out - what the great philosophical problems are about. The momentous statements I come across are at best a storm in a teacup. There are quite a number of people who have a vested interest in the stuff, make a noble living out of it, and they conspire with one another to keep it alive.

175. It is not at all simple to understand the simple.

224. When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant.