Hoff Quotes & Sayings

Now one rather annoying thing about scholars is that they are always using Big Words that some of us can't understand ... and one sometimes gets the impression that those intimidating words are there to keep us from understanding. That way, the Scholars can appear Superior, and will not likely be suspected of Not Knowing Something. — Benjamin Hoff

I feel like I'm more of the underdog, which is kind of nice. — Katie Hoff

You are aware, I suppose, that I lived through two years of torture? Two years in hell, so I can stand before you now. Or lean before you, twisted as an old tree root. A crippled, shambling, wretched mockery of a man, eh, Lord Hoff? Let us be honest with one another. Sometimes I lose control of my own leg. My own eyes. My own face." He snorted. "If you can call it a face. My bowels, too, are rebellious. I often wake up daubed in my own shit. I find myself in constant pain, and the memories of everything that I have lost nag at me, endlessly." He felt his left eye twitching. Let it twitch. "So you can see how, despite my constant efforts to be a man of sunny temper, I find that I despise the world, and everything in it, and myself most of all. A regrettable state of affairs, for which there is no remedy. — Joe Abercrombie

The last few years haven't been as good so I can fly under the radar, come in and do the best I can and I don't have all these high hopes placed on me. — Katie Hoff

The Hoff has become larger than life, so I can't do anything small any more. If I mess up, it becomes big no matter what it is, so if I do something positive, it has to be equally big. — David Hasselhoff

You have to be literate in today's world. We're not going to get away with not teaching boys to read. — Christina Hoff Sommers

Things definitely got out of perspective. — Katie Hoff

We can distinguish three groups of scientific men. In the first and very small group we have the men who discover fundamental relations. Among these are van't Hoff, Arrhenius and Nernst. In the second group we have the men who do not make the great discovery but who see the importance and bearing of it, and who preach the gospel to the heathen. Ostwald stands absolutely at the head of this group. The last group contains the rest of us, the men who have to have things explained to us. — Wilder Dwight Bancroft

The masters of life know the way, for they listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond cleverness and knows beyond knowledge. — Benjamin Hoff

So quite often, the easiest way to get rid of a Minus is to change it to a Plus. Sometimes you will find that characteristics you try hard to eliminate eventually come back, anyway. But if you do the right things, they will come back in the right ways. And sometimes those very tendencies that you dislike the most can show up in the right time to save your life, somehow. — Benjamin Hoff

We must have moral education in the schools, anti-bullying programs, but this does not mean programs to feminize boys. — Christina Hoff Sommers

This book explains how it became fashionable to pathologize the behavior of millions of healthy male children. We have turned against boys and forgotten a simple truth: the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal males are responsible for much of what is right in the world. No one denies that boys' aggressive tendencies must be mitigated and channeled toward constructive ends. Boys need (and crave) discipline, respect, and moral guidance. Boys need love and tolerant understanding. But being a boy is not a social disease. — Christina Hoff Sommers

If "good" is not necessarily good, and "bad" not necessarily bad, what is "small"? — Benjamin Hoff

When you know and respect your Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don't belong. — Benjamin Hoff

Whether many people realize it yet or not, man, the Inferior Animal, has by now proved himself incapable of keeping his own species - and others - alive for very much longer. So the earth has begun its own plan to set things right. — Benjamin Hoff

The power-hungry wanter their followers to believe that heaven was a place to which some people - and only people - went after death, a place that could be reached by those who had the approval of their organizations. So not even the perfected spirits were able to restore the wholeness of truth, because of interference by the human ego. — Benjamin Hoff

The play-it-safe pessimists of the world never accomplish much of anything, because they don't look clearly and objectively at situations, they don't recognize or believe in their own abilities to overcome even the smallest amount of risk. — Benjamin Hoff

Phonographic. It goes around and around. Sometimes it gets stuck. That's why I remember things so well. — Benjamin Hoff

Do you really want to be happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you've got. — Benjamin Hoff

Knowledge and cleverness tend to concern themselves with the wrong sorts of things, and a mind confused by knowledge, cleverness and abstract ideas tends to go chasing after things that don't matter, or that don't even exists, instead of seeing, appreciating, and making use of what is fit in front of it. — Benjamin Hoff

Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet. — Benjamin Hoff

As our planet takes action to cast out its manmade poisons and heal its man-caused wounds, many human inhabitants will no doubt give way to fear. Many will cling to seemingly powerful we're-God's-chosen-people religions, hoping that by so doing they will be saved from the wrath of a Vengeful God (not recognizing that the approaching "vengeance" will in reality be man's own actions coming back at him - and not recognizing that the Infinite Universal Power is far more than the narrow-minded gatekeeper of an exclusive Spiritual Country Club). — Benjamin Hoff

It is very hard to be brave," said Piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're only a Very Small Animal."
Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: "It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us. — Benjamin Hoff

It's good to raise awareness that men and boys are struggling, at least many of them are. But why say men are finished? It's too harsh, too sweeping, and it happens to not be true. — Christina Hoff Sommers

When my son David was a high school senior in 2003, his graduating class went on a camping trip in the desert. A creative writing educator visited the camp and led the group through an exercise designed to develop their sensitivity and imaginations. Each student was given a pen, a notebook, a candle, and matches. They were told to walk a short distance into the desert, sit down alone, and "discover themselves." The girls followed instructions. The boys, baffled by the assignment, gathered together, threw the notebooks into a pile, lit them with the matches, and made a little bonfire. — Christina Hoff Sommers

The honey doesn't taste so good once it is being eaten; the goal doesn't mean so much once it is reached; the reward is no so rewarding once it has been given. If we add up all the rewards in our lives, we won't have very much. But if we add up the spaces *between* the rewards, we'll come up with quite a bit. And if we add up the rewards *and* the spaces, then we'll have everything - every minute of the time that we spent. — Benjamin Hoff

There was a man that hated his footprints and his shadow, so one day he thought that if he ran fast enough, his footprints and shadow would not be able to follow him and then he never ever had to look at them again. He ran and he ran as fast as he could, but the shadow and the footprints had no problems keeping up to him. And he ran even faster and all of a sudden he fell dead to the ground. But if he been standing still there hadn't been any footprints and if he had been resting under a tree his shadow had been swallowed of the trees shadow. — Benjamin Hoff

I'm concerned that boys have become politically incorrect, that we are a society in the process of turning against its male children. — Christina Hoff Sommers

Wherever Gandhi went, he transformed situations and lives. As one friend and biographer wrote, He ... changed human beings by regarding them not as what they thought they were but as though they were what they wished to be, and as though the good in them was all of them — Benjamin Hoff

Now you ask a group of young women on the college campus, 'How many of you are feminists?' Very few will raise their hands, because young women don't want to be associated with it anymore because they know it means male-bashing, it means being a victim, and it means being bitter and angry. — Christina Hoff Sommers

Boy's natural play is rough and tumble play, it's the universal play of little boys. And it's very different from aggression. And we are a society that's failing to understand the distinction. — Christina Hoff Sommers

Truth is on the side of compassion. — Christina Hoff Sommers

I think the rules will change and I think more and more young women are going to decide that having a family and taking care of a home is not a bad choice, but how do we subsidize it - not necessarily European-style socialism. It'll have to be a new more creative, dynamic and local solution. — Christina Hoff Sommers

It is sometimes easier to circumvent prevailing difficulties [in science] rather than to attack them. — Jacobus Henricus Van 't Hoff

It's not surprising, therefore, that the [Bisy] Backson thinks of progress in terms of fighting and overcoming. One of his little idiosyncrasies, you might say. Of course, real progress involves growing and developing, which involves changing inside, but that's something the inflexible Backson is unwilling to do. — Benjamin Hoff

While Eeyore frets ... and Piglet hesitates ... and Rabbit calculates ... and Owl pontificates ... Pooh just is. — Benjamin Hoff

We simply need to believe in the power that's within us, and use it. — Benjamin Hoff

Cleverness, after all, has its limitations. Its mechanical judgments and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn't look very deeply into things to begin with — Benjamin Hoff

I think it's ill-advised to attribute pathologies to healthy people. It doesn't help normal, healthy, thriving children to be viewed as pitiable and fragile. — Christina Hoff Sommers

I can just put my head down and train hard. — Katie Hoff

You are wonderfully made. Everything about you is miraculous. Toss aside those self-doubts and criticisms. Celebrate, today, the miracle of you! — Sheri Kaye Hoff

Things may get a little odd at times, but they work out. You don't have to try very hard to make them work out; you just let them. — Benjamin Hoff

Live each day with more peace, passion, energy, and joy. — Sheri Kaye Hoff

If people were superior to animals, they'd take good care of them, said Pooh. — Benjamin Hoff

A fair and just society offers equality of opportunity to all. But it cannot promise, and should not try to enforce, sameness. — Christina Hoff Sommers

Wisdom, Happiness, and Courage are not waiting somewhere out beyond sight at the end of a straight line; they're part of a continuous cycle that begins right here. They're not only the ending, but the beginning as well. — Benjamin Hoff

Pooh is able to accomplish what he does because he is simpleminded. — Benjamin Hoff

You'd be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are. — Benjamin Hoff

Inner Nature, when relied on, cannot be fooled. But many people do not look at it or listen to it, and consequently do not understand themselves very much. Having little understanding of themselves, they have little respect for themselves, and are therefore easily influenced by others. — Benjamin Hoff

Well, it takes all kinds to make a mess. — Benjamin Hoff

Modern man's difficulties, dangerous beliefs and feelings of loneliness, spiritual emptiness,and personal weakness are caused by his illusions about, and separation from, the natural world. — Benjamin Hoff

You don't need to go over every detail of your past, but if something comes up, face it and process those feelings, get to the core belief, so you can shift it. — Sheri Kaye Hoff

Treat gain and loss the same.' Don't be Intimidated. Don't make a Big Deal of anything - just accept things as they come to you. — Benjamin Hoff

The surest way to become Tense, Awkward, and Confused is to develop a mind that tries too hard - one that thinks too much. — Benjamin Hoff

Love returns to love, again, and again and again. — Ann Marie Hoff

It matters not if the world has heard or approves or understands...the only applause we're meant to seek is that of nail-scarred hands. — B.J. Hoff

Harvard produces leaders. People with Harvard degrees go on to become administrators in high-level positions in state educational departments and in public schools around the country. — Christina Hoff Sommers

While a psychiatric diagnosis can serve a purpose in treatment plans, it should not become a tool to discredit a person's disclosure of abuse. — Lee Ann Hoff

Here are young women with more opportunities, more liberties than almost any women in history and at that moment we tell them they're short-changed silenced victims of a patriarchy? It's defeatist and demoralising. — Christina Hoff Sommers

The Christmas presents once opened are Not So Much Fun as they were while we were in the process of examining, lifting, shaking, thinking about, and opening them. Three hundred sixty-five days later, we try again and find that the same thing has happened. Each time the goal is reached, it becomes Not So Much Fun, and we're off to reach the next one, then the next one, then the next.
That doesn't mean that the goals we have don't count. They do, mostly because they cause us to go through the process and it's the process that makes us wise, happy, or whatever. If we do things in the wrong sort of way, it makes us miserable, angry, confused, and things like that. The goal has to be right for us, and it has to be beneficial, in order to ensure a beneficial process. But aside from that, it's really the process that's important. — Benjamin Hoff

This is Glasgow," added Chief Ben. "Even the faeries have drug problems. — Amy Hoff

Whatever is going on- accept it rather than try to fight it. When you accept what is- then you are free to act. You have the energy to take action. You haven't used up all of your energy trying to fight and force things into place. What we resist persists. You will know you are in resistance when you look at what you are trying hard to push away and out of your life. — Sheri Kaye Hoff

Sourness and bitterness come from the interfering and unappreciative mind. Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet. That is the message of The Vinegar Tasters. — Benjamin Hoff

No!" barked Hoff again. "There will be no duel here! There is no issue to decide! Angland is a part of the Union, by ancient law!"

White-Eye Hansul chuckled softly. "Ancient law? Angland is part of the North. Two hundred years ago there were Northmen there, living free. You wanted iron, so you crossed the sea, and slaughtered them and stole their land! It must be, then, that most ancient of laws: that the strong take what they wish from the weak?" His eyes narrowed. "We have that law also! — Joe Abercrombie

The Hoff has taken over David Hasselhoff. David Hasselhoff really doesn't know who he is anymore. Everywhere I go, it's The Hoff. — David Hasselhoff

There are a lot of homely women in women's studies. Preaching these anti-male, anti-sex sermons is a way for them to compensate for various heartaches
they're just mad at the beautiful girls. — Christina Hoff Sommers

I told myself there was no way I was going to let this training go to waste. It was my time, and I was ready to go. — Katie Hoff

As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simple-minded does not necessarily mean stupid. — Benjamin Hoff

If I could compete at home, and never leave Rochester, I'd be in perfect condition. — Katie Hoff

I'm not saying I didn't have a great 2008. I just made it a chore. I made it look laborious. — Katie Hoff

Truth brought to public light recruits the best of us to work for change. On the other hand, even the best-intentioned "noble lie" ultimately discredits the finest of causes. — Christina Hoff Sommers

Under Confucianism, the use of precisely measured court music, prescribed steps, actions, and phrases all added up to an extremely complex system of rituals, each used for a particular purpose at a particular time. — Benjamin Hoff

My boyfriend is not a swimmer! — Katie Hoff

I'm more relaxed and just feel like there's kind of a peace with myself. — Katie Hoff

A famous name has this peculiarity that it becomes gradually smaller especially in natural sciences where each succeeding discovery invariably overshadows what precedes. — Jacobus Henricus Van 't Hoff

Sooner or later, we are bound to discover some things about ourselves that we don't like. But once we see they're there, we can decide what we want to do with them. Do we want to get rid of them completely, change them into other things, or use them in beneficial ways? The last two approaches are often especially Useful, since they avoid head on conflict, and therefore minimize struggle. Also, they allow those transformed characteristics to be added to the list of things we have that help us out.
In a similar manner, instead of struggling to erase what are referred to as negative emotions, we can learn to use them in positive ways. We could describe the principle like this: while pounding on the piano keys may produce noise, removing them doesn't exactly further the creation of music. — Benjamin Hoff

A way of life that keeps saying 'Around the next corner, above the next step,' works against the natural order of things and makes it so difficult to be happy and good. — Benjamin Hoff

Eeyore religion says that the earth isn't worth saving, anyway, and that when it comes to an end, the Faithful will be transported instantly to heaven. No problem. We'd like to see them explain things to Saint Peter at the Gate, when he asks them what they did with the world that God entrusted to them. That might get a bit sticky. — Benjamin Hoff

Perhaps in the pursuit of happiness, men and women take somewhat different paths. And, isn't it more than a little patronizing to suggest that most ... women are not free? They're not self-determining human beings? — Christina Hoff Sommers

And if clever rabbit doesn't quite have what it takes, abrasive Eeyore certainly doesn't either. Why not? Because of what we could call the Eeyore Attitude. You might say the while rabbit's little routine is that of knowledge for the sake of being clever, and while Owl's is that of knowledge for the sake of appearing wise, Eeyore's is knowledge for the sake of complaining about something. As anyone who doesn't have it can see, the Eeyore attitude gets in the way of things like wisdom and happiness, and pretty much prevents any sort of real accomplishment in life. — Benjamin Hoff

Christina Hoff Sommers quotes one professor's compliant about "students who have been trained to take a 'feminist perspective'": "For them reason itself is patriarchal, linear, and oppressive." In other words, Women's Studies agrees with the Victorians that women are the less intellectual sex; the difference is that in the view of Women's Studies this doesn't make them inferior but superior. — Bruce Bawer

Those who think that the rewarding things in life are somewhere over the rainbow 'burn their toast a lot,' said Pooh — Benjamin Hoff

The urge to grow and develop, present in all forms of life, becomes perverted in the Bisy Backson's mind into a constant struggle to change everything (the Bulldozer Backson) and everyone (the Bigoted Backson) else but himself, and interfere with things he has no business interfering with, including practically every form of life on earth. — Benjamin Hoff

Lots of people talk to animals ... Not very many listen though ... that's the problem. — Benjamin Hoff

When we give up our images of self-importance and our ideas of what should be, we can help things become what they need to be. — Benjamin Hoff

The major lesson Tiggers need to learn is that if they don't control their impulses, their impulses will control them. No matter how much they do, Tiggers are never satisfied because they don't know the feeling of accomplishment that eventually comes when one persistently applies one's will to the attaining of non-immediately-reachable goals. — Benjamin Hoff

Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will choose the way of Pooh. As if from far away, it calls to us with the voice of a child's mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through the forest. — Benjamin Hoff

Ninety-nine percent of people now call me The Hoff - and it's out of respect. — David Hasselhoff

That is the corrosive paradox of gender feminism's misandrist stance: no group of women can wage war on men without at the same time denigrating the women who respect those men. — Christina Hoff Sommers

But the basic Taoism that we are concerned with here is simply a particular way of appreciating, learning from, and working with whatever happens in everyday life. — Benjamin Hoff

Thousands of years ago, man lived in harmony with the rest of the natural world. Through what we would today call Telepathy, he communicated with animals, plants, and other forms of life-none of which he considered "beneath" himself, only different, with different jobs to perform. He worked side by side with earth angels and nature spirits, with whom he shared responsibility for taking care of the world. — Benjamin Hoff

But isn't the knowledge that comes from experience more valuable than the knowledge that doesn't? It seems fairly obvious to some of us that a lot of scholars need to go outside and sniff around - walk through the grass, talk to the animals. That sort of thing. — Benjamin Hoff

"What's that?" the Unbeliever asked.
"Wisdom from the Western Taoist,"I said.
"It sounds like something from Winnie-the-Pooh ," he said.
"It is," I said.
"That's not about Taoism," he said.
"Oh, yes it is," I said." — Benjamin Hoff

A well-frog cannot imagine the ocean, nor can a summer insect conceive of ice. How then can a scholar understand the Tao? He is restricted by his own learning. — Benjamin Hoff

I don't think anyone will deny that girls are academically superior as a group. — Christina Hoff Sommers

I think the fallacy is to think that Women's Liberation meant that men and women would become interchangeable. That has not happened, and most men and women would not want it to happen. — Christina Hoff Sommers

Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, 'This isn't supposed to be happening this way,' and trying harder to make it happen some other way. — Benjamin Hoff

To know the way,
we go the way,
we do the way.
The way we do,
the things we do,
it's all there in front of you.
But if you try too hard to see it,
you'll only become confused.
I am me and you are you.
As you can see;
but when you do
the things that you can do,
you will find the way.
The way will follow you. — Benjamin Hoff

I began to realize how important it is to be able to know your gifts and dreams, to live in the moment, to work less hard and to let things flow. I embraced the fact that worry never is a good thing. I learned that I could control my thoughts, which then affects my feelings and the quality of my life. — Sheri Kaye Hoff

What we need to do is recognize inner nature and work with things as they are. When we don't we get in trouble. — Benjamin Hoff