Top 114 Quotes by Eric Hoffer

It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate.

Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.

It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.

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.

A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.

An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.

The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.

There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.