Eric Hoffer The True Believer Quotes & Sayings

To lose one's life is but to lose the present; and, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much. — Eric Hoffer

For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. And whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature and potentialities. — Eric Hoffer

...the grass actually IS greener on the other side, but it's only because of the bodies buried there. — Robert Ford

The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ. — Eric Hoffer

America is an open society, more open than any other in the world. People of every race, of every color, of every culture are welcomed here to create a new life for themselves and their families. And what do these people who enter into the American mainstream have in common? English, our shared common language. — S.I. Hayakawa

In a world of sleepwalkers an awakened mind is a teacher and a catalyst for new awakenings, whether they want to be or not. — Bryant McGill

I am a meat-loving Southern girl. Add in being a writer, and that means I drink more than I should, too. — Sarah Lacy

I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. — Stephen King

Condemnation is a tool of the enemy, but conviction is God's means of bringing us to repentance. — Hope D. Blackwell

error. It was Saturday evening, February 25, 2006, and I had twenty-four hours — Christopher McDougall

I'm Indian all the way and always will be. I'm not going to stop fighting until I die, and I hope I'm a good example of a human being and of my tribe. — Anna Mae Aquash

The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole
the church, party, nation
and not to his fellow true believer. — Eric Hoffer

The permanent misfits can find salvation only in a complete separation from the self; and they usually find it by losing themselves in the compact collectivity of a mass movement. — Eric Hoffer

To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair. — Eric Hoffer

America has its roots in a tradition of risk-taking pioneers. In more conservative Europe, if you fail in business or actually end up going to jail for it, you're finished as a businessman for good. — Stelios Haji-Ioannou

There is perhaps some hope to be derived from the fact that in most instances where an attempt to realize an ideal society gave birth to the ugliness and violence of a prolonged active mass movement the experiment was made on a vast scale and with a heterogeneous population. Such was the case in the rise of Christianity and Islam, and in the French, Russian and Nazi revolutions. The promising communal settlements in the small state of Israel and the successful programs of socialization in the small Scandinavian states indicate perhaps that when the attempt to realize an ideal society is undertaken by a small nation with a more or less homogeneous population it can proceed and succeed in an atmosphere which is neither hectic nor coercive. — Eric Hoffer

It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. — Eric Hoffer

I have been given permission to announce that I and others from 'All My Children' have been approached by the company Prospect Park, who bought 'AMC,' with the intention to move it online. — Cameron Mathison

If your audience doesn't like something, you should think to yourself, "Well, why don't they like something? Is there something wrong here?" And, if they like something, you should think to yourself, "Why do they like it? What am I doing right here?," and deal with those issues. — David Shore

The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit the earth and the kingdom of heaven too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen will perish. — Eric Hoffer

Chopin was an invalid, as you know, but his music was volcanic. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Are you guys done up there?" Aris yelled, still facing the other direction. "Yes!" Teresa called back. "And don't expect me to ever kiss you on the cheek again. I think my lips have a fungus now. — James Dashner

Enter into the activities of the world, without getting overjoyed by success or totally put out by failure. Whether they love you or hate you, it doesn't much matter. What matters is stillness. — Frederick Lenz

Even the sober desire for progress is sustained by faith - faith in the intrinsic goodness of human nature and in the omnipotence of science. It is a defiant and blasphemous faith, not unlike that held by the men who set out to build a "city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven" and who believed that "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. — Eric Hoffer

Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole the church, party, nation and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society . — Eric Hoffer

The enemy - the indispensible devil of every mass movement - is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors. — Eric Hoffer

The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person. — Eric Hoffer

If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope. — Eric Hoffer

Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and that they usually join of their own accord, it is assumed:
1) that frustration of itself, without any proselytizing prompting from the outside, can generate most of the peculiar characteristics of the true believer;
2) that an effective technique of conversion consists basically in the inculcation and fixation of proclivities and responses indigenous to the frustrated mind. — Eric Hoffer