Background Image

...

That Which Is Unique And Worthwhile In Us Makes Itself Felt Only In Flashes. If We Do Not Know How To Catch And Savor The Flashes We Are Without Growth And Exhilaration.

-Eric Hoffer

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

That Which Is Unique

Eric Hoffer

...

That Which Is Unique And Worthwhile In Us Makes Itself Felt Only In Flashes. If We Do Not Know How To Catch And Savor The Flashes We Are Without Growth And Exhilaration.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Eric Hoffer

The Act Of Self-denial Seems To Confer On Us The Right To Be Harsh And Merciless Toward Others.

America Is Still The Best Country For The Common Man -- White Or Black ... If He Can't Make It Here He Won't Make It Anywhere Else.

There Is Apparently No Surer Way Of Turning A Thing Into Its Opposite Than By Exaggerating It

The Passion For Equality Is Partly A Passion For Anonymity: To Be One Thread Of The Many Which Make Up A Tunic; One Thread Not Distinguishable From The Others. No One Can Then Point Us Out, Measure Us Against Others And Expose Our Inferiority.

We Clamor For Equality Chiefly In Matters In Which We Ourselves Cannot Hope To Obtain Excellence.

Conservatism Is Sometimes A Symptom Of Sterility. Those Who Have Nothing In Them That Can Grow And Develop Must Cling To What They Have In Beliefs, Ideas And Possessions. The Sterile Radical, Too, Is Basically Conservative. He Is Afraid To Let Go Of The Ideas And Beliefs He Picked Up In His Youth Lest His Life Be Seen As Empty And Wasted.

To Become Different From What We Are, We Must Have Some Awareness Of What We Are.

However Much We Talk Of The Inexorable Laws Governing The Life Of Individuals And Of Societies, We Remain At The Bottom Convinced That In Human Affairs Everything In More Or Less Fortuitous. We Do Not Even Believe In The Inevitability Of Our Own Death. Hence The Difficulty Of Deciphering The Present, Of Detecting The Seeds Of Things To Come As They Germinate Before Our Eyes. We Are Not Attuned To Seeing The Inevitable.

In A Trader-dominated Society, The Scribe Is Usually Kept Out Of The Management Of Affairs, But It Given A More Or Less Free Hand In The Cultural Field. By Frustrating The Scribe's Craving For Commanding Action, The Trader Draws Upon Himself The Scribe's Wrath And Scorn.

The Great Crimes Of The Twentieth Century Were Committed Not By Money-grubbing Capitalists But By Dedicated Idealists. Lenin, Stalin, And Hitler Were Contemptuous Of Money. The Passage From The Nineteenth To The Twentieth Century Has Been A Passage From Considerations Of Money To Considerations Of Power.

The Passion To Get Ahead Is Sometimes Born Of The Fear Lest We Be Left Behind.

Somewhere Between The Angels And The French Lies The Rest Of Humanity.

Disappointment Is A Sort Of Bankruptcy - The Bankruptcy Of A Soul That Expends Too Much In Hope And Expectation.

The Weak Are Not A Noble Breed. Their Sublime Deeds Of Faith, Daring, And Self-sacrifice Usually Spring From Questionable Motives. The Weak Hate Not Wickedness But Weakness; And One Instance Of Their Hatred Of Weakness Is Hatred Of Self. All The Passionate Pursuits Of The Weak Are In Some Degree A Striving To Escape, Blur, Or Disguise An Unwanted Self. It Is A Striving Shot Through With Malice, Envy, Self-deception, And A Host Of Petty Impulses; Yet It Often Culminates In Superb Achievements.

Anger Is A Prelude To Courage.

The Technique Of A Mass Movement Aims To Infect People With A Malady And Then Offer The Movement As A Cure.

It Was The Craving To Be A One And Only People Which Impelled The Ancient Hebrews To Invent A One And Only God Whose One And Only People They Were To Be.

It Is Easier To Hate An Enemy With Much Good In Him Than One Who Is All Bad. We Cannot Hate Those We Despise.

Intolerance Is The ''do Not Touch'' Sign On Something That Cannot Bear Touching. We Do Not Mind Having Our Hair Ruffled, But We Will Not Tolerate Any Familiarity With The Toupee Which Covers Our Baldness.

It Is Our Talents Rusting Unused Within Us That Secrete The Poison Of Self-doubt Into Our Bloodstream.

Compassion Is The Antitoxin Of The Soul: Where There Is Compassion Even The Most Poisonous Impulses Remain Relatively Harmless.

The Search For Happiness Is One Of The Chief Sources Of Unhappiness.

It Is A Perplexing And Unpleasant Truth That When Men Already Have "something Worth Fighting For,they Do Not Feel Like Fighting.

A War Is Not Won If The Defeated Enemy Has Not Been Turned Into A Friend.

The Unpredictability Inherent In Human Affairs Is Due Largely To The Fact That The By-products Of A Human Process Are More Fateful Than The Product.

The Main Effect Of A Real Revolution Is Perhaps That It Sweeps Away Those Who Do Not Know How To Wish, And Brings To The Front Men With Insatiable Appetites For Action, Power And All That The World Has To Offer.

It Is The Pull Of Opposite Poles That Stretches Souls. And Only Stretched Souls Make Music.

It Is A Paradox That In Our Time Of Drastic Rapid Change, When The Future Is In Our Midst Devouring The Present Before Our Eyes, We Have Never Been Less Certain About What Is Ahead Of Us.

The Most Troublesome Problem Which Confronts Social Engineering Is How To Provide For The Untalented And, What Is Equally Important, How To Provide Against Them.

To Know A Person's Religion We Need Not Listen To His Profession Of Faith But Must Find His Brand Of Intolerance.

The Conservatism Of A Religion - It's Orthodoxy - Is The Inert Coagulum Of A Once Highly Reactive Sap.

A Just Society Must Strive With All Its Might To Right Wrongs Even If Righting Wrongs Is A Highly Perilous Undertaking. But If It Is To Survive, A Just Society Must Be Strong And Resolute Enough To Deal Swiftly And Relentlessly With Those Who Would Mistake Its Good Will For Weakness.

The Craving To Change The World Is Perhaps A Reflection Of The Craving To Change Ourselves.

Changing The World

It Is A Strange Thing That Both The Injurer And The Injured, The Sinner And He Who Is Sinned Against, Should Find In The Mass Movement An Escape From A Blemished Life.

I Have A Premonition That Will Not Leave Me: As It Goes With Israel So Will It Go With All Of Us. Should Israel Perish, The Holocaust Will Be Upon Us.

There Is In Even The Most Selfish Passion A Large Element Of Self-abnegation. It Is Startling To Realize That What We Call Extreme Self-seeking Is Actually Self-renunciation. The Miser, Health Addict, Glory Chaser And Their Like Are Not Far Behind The Selfless In The Exercise Of Self-sacrifice.

There Is A Radicalism In All Getting, And A Conservatism In All Keeping. Lovemaking Is Radical, While Marriage Is Conservative.

Our Credulity Is Greatest Concerning The Things We Know Least About.

Where Everything Is Possible Miracles Become Commonplaces, But The Familiar Ceases To Be Self-evident.

Capitalism Is At Its Liberating Best In A Noncapitalist Environment. The Crypto-businessman Is The True Revolutionary In A Communist Country.

The Leader Personifies The Certitude Of The Creed And The Defiance And Grandeur Of Power. He Articulates And Justifies The Resentment Damned Up In The Souls Of The Frustrated. He Kindles The Vision Of A Breath-taking Future So As To Justify The Sacrifice Of A Transitory Present. He Stages A World Of Make-believe So Indispensable For The Realization Of Self-sacrifice And United Action.

Sensuality Reconciles Us With The Human Race. The Misanthropy Of The Old Is Due In Large Part To The Fading Of The Magic Glow Of Desire.

Unless A Man Has The Talents To Make Something Of Himself, Freedom Is An Irksome Burden.

The Well-adjusted Make Poor Prophets.

We Cannot Hate Those Who We Despise.

Perhaps Our Originality Manifests Itself Most Strikingly In What We Do With That Which We Did Not Originate. To Discover Something Wholly New Can Be A Matter Of Chance, Of Idle Tinkering, Or Even Of The Chronic Dissatisfaction Of The Untalented.

Should Israel Perish, The Holocaust Will Be Upon Us.

Lack Of Sensitivity Is Perhaps Basically An Unawareness Of Ourselves.

It Is Easier To Love Humanity As A Whole Than To Love One's Neighbor. ... Some Of The Worst Tyrannies Of Our Day Genuinely Are "vowed" To The Service Of Mankind, Yet Can Function Only By Pitting Neighbor Against Neighbor. The All-seeing Eye Of A Totalitarian Regime Is Usually The Watchful Eye Of The Next-door Neighbor. In A Communist State Love Of Neighbor May Be Classed As Counter-revolutionary.

The Short-lived Self, Teetering On The Edge Of Extinction, Is The Only Thing That Can Ever Really Matter.

We Can Never Have Enough Of That Which We Really Do Not Want.

Our Quarrel With The World Is An Echo Of The Endless Quarrel Proceeding Within Us.

Even In Slight Things The Experience Of The New Is Rarely Without Some Stirring Of Foreboding.

Action Is At Bottom A Swinging And Flailing Of The Arms To Regain One's Balance And Keep Afloat.

Where Unity And Self-sacrifice Are Indispensable For The Normal Functioning Of Society, Everyday Life Is Likely To Be Either Religiofied (common Tasks Turned Into Holy Causes) Or Militarized.

I Hang Onto My Prejudices, They Are The Testicles Of My Mind.

We Are Made Kind By Being Kind.

When People Are Free To Do As They Please, They Usually Imitate Each Other.

The Only Way To Predict The Future Is To Have Power To Shape The Future.

Creativity Is Discontent Translated Into Arts.

It Is Compassion Rather Than The Principle Of Justice Which Can Guard Us Against Being Unjust To Our Fellow Men.

All Mass Movements Strive, Therefore, To Interpose A Fact-proof Screen Between The Faithful And The Realities Of The World. They Do This By Claiming That The Ultimate And Absolute Truth Is Already Embodied In Their Doctrine And That There Is No Truth Nor Certitude Outside It. The Facts On Which The True Believer Bases His Conclusions Must Not Be Derived From His Experience Or Observation But From Holy Writ.

It Is Startling To See How The Oppressed Almost Invariably Shape Themselves In The Image Of Their Hated Oppressors.

The Burning Conviction That We Have A Holy Duty Towards Others Is Often A Way Of Attaching Our Drowning Selves To A Passing Raft. What Looks Like A Giving Hand Is Often A Holding On For Dear Life. Take Away Our Holy Duties And You Leave Our Lives Puny And Meaningless. There Is No Doubt That In Exchanging A Self-centered For A Selfless Life We Gain Enormously In Self-esteem. The Vanity Of The Selfless, Even Those Who Practice Utmost Humility, Is Boundless.

The Most Effective Way To Silence Our Guilty Conscience Is To Convince Ourselves And Others That Those We Have Sinned Against Are Indeed Depraved Creatures, Deserving Every Punishment, Even Extermination. We Cannot Pity Those We Have Wronged, Nor Can We Be Indifferent Toward Them. We Must Hate And Persecute Them Or Else Leave The Door Open To Self-contempt.

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 .

Power Corrupts The Few, While Weakness Corrupts The Many.

It Is The Individual Only Who Is Timeless. Societies, Cultures, And Civilizations -- Past And Present -- Are Often Incomprehensible To Outsiders, But The Individual's Hungers, Anxieties, Dreams, And Preoccupations Have Remained Unchanged Through The Millenia.

The Compulsion To Take Ourselves Seriously Is In Inverse Proportion To Our Creative Capacity. When The Creative Flow Dries Up, All We Have Left Is Our Importance.

To Have A Grievance Is To Have A Purpose In Life. It Not Infrequently Happens That Those Who Hunger For Hope Give Their Allegiance To Him Who Offers Them A Grievance.

The Rule Seems To Be That Those Who Find No Difficulty In Deceiving Themselves Are Easily Deceived By Others. They Are Easily Persuaded And Led.

In Human Affairs Every Solution Serves Only To Sharpen The Problem, To Show Us More Clearly What We Are Up Against. There Are No Final Solutions.

To The Creative Individual All Experience Is Seminal-all Events Are Equidistant From New Ideasand Insights.

Take Man's Most Fantastic Invention- God. Man Invents God In The Image Of His Longings, In The Image Of What He Wants To Be, Then Proceeds To Imitate That Image, Vie With It, And Strive To Overcome It.

Never Have The Young Taken Themselves So Seriously, And The Calamity Is That They Are Listened To And Deferred To By So Many Adults.

To Believe That If We Could Have But This Or That We Would Be Happy Is To Suppress The Realization That The Cause Of Our Unhappiness Is In Our Inadequate And Blemished Selves. Excessive Desire Is Thus A Means Of Suppressing Our Sense Of Worthlessness.

There Is No Reason Why Humanity Cannot Be Served Equally By Weighty And Trivial Motives.

Glory Is Largely A Theatrical Concept. There Is No Striving For Glory Without A Vivid Awareness Of An Audience.

Every Era Has A Currency That Buys Souls. In Some The Currency Is Pride, In Others It Is Hope, In Still Others It Is A Holy Cause. There Are Of Course Times When Hard Cash Will Buy Souls, And The Remarkable Thing Is That Such Times Are Marked By Civility, Tolerance, And The Smooth Working Of Everyday Life.

Poverty When Coupled With Creativeness Is Usually Free Of Frustration. This Is True Of The Poor Artisan Skilled In His Trade And Of The Poor Writer, Artist, And Scientist In The Full Possession Of Creative Powers. Nothing So Bolsters Our Self-confidence And Reconciles Us With Ourselves As The Continuous Ability To Create; To See Things Grow And Develop Under Our Hand, Day In, Day Out. The Decline Of Handicrafts In Modern Times Is Perhaps One Of The Causes For The Rise Of Frustration And The Increased Susceptibility Of The Individual To Mass Movements.

Self Confidence

People With A Sense Of Fulfillment Think It Is A Good World And Would Like To Conserve It As It Is, While The Frustrated Favor Radical Change.

To Be Ruthless Requires Belief That Our Life On Earth Is But A Brief Prelude To An Afterlife, Or A Temporary Sacrifice Before Some Utopia Can Be Instituted. Where There Is The Necessary Technical Skill To Move Mountains, There Is No Need For The Faith That Moves Mountains.

To Be Fully Alive Is To Feel That Everything Is Possible.

They Who Lack Talent Expect Things To Happen Without Effort. They Ascribe Failure To A Lack Of Inspiration Or Ability, Or To Misfortune, Rather Than To Insufficient Application. At The Core Of Every True Talent There Is An Awareness Of The Difficulties Inherent In Any Achievement, And The Confidence That By Persistence And Patience Something Worthwhile Will Be Realized. Thus Talent Is A Species Of Vigor.

A Man Is Likely To Mind His Own Business When It Is Worth Minding.

How Terribly Hard And Almost Impossible It Is To Tell The Truth. More Than Anything Else, The Artist In Us Prevents Us From Telling Aught As It Really Happened. We Deal With The Truth As The Cook Deals With Meat And Vegetables.

No Matter How Noble The Objectives Of A Government, If It Blurs Decency And Kindness, Cheapens Human Life, And Breeds Ill Will And Suspicion; It Is An Evil Government.

The Autonomous Individual, Striving To Realize Himself And Prove His Worth, Has Created All That Is Great In Literature, Art, Music, Science And Technology. The Autonomous Individual, Also, When He Can Neither Realize Himself Nor Justify His Existence By His Own Efforts, Is A Breeding Call Of Frustration, And The Seed Of The Convulsions Which Shake Our World To Its Foundations.

Ideas Have Significance For Him Only As A Prelude To Action.

Absolute Power Turns Its Possessors Not Into A God But An Anti-god. For God Turned Clay Into Men, While The Absolute Despot Turns Men Into Clay.

There Is No Reason To Believe That The Nature Of The Violent Minorities Is Now Greatly Different From What It Was In The Past. What Has Changed Is The Will And Ability Of The Majority To React.

Many Of The Insights Of The Saint Stem From His Experience As A Sinner.

A Good Sentence Is A Key . It Unlocks The Mind Of The Reader.

A Great Man's Greatest Good Luck Is To Die At The Right Time.

Rudeness Luxuriates In The Absence Of Self-respect.

There Are No Chaste Minds. Minds Copulate Wherever They Meet.

Nature Attains Perfection, But Man Never Does. There Is A Perfect Ant, A Perfect Bee, But Man Is Perpetually Unfinished. He Is Both An Unfinished Animal And An Unfinished Man. It Is This Incurable Unfinishedness Which Sets Man Apart From Other Living Things. For, In The Attempt To Finish Himself, Man Becomes A Creator. Moreover, The Incurable Unfinishedness Keeps Man Perpetually Immature, Perpetually Capable Of Learning And Growing.

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.

What Merit There Is In My Thinking Is Derived From Two Peculiarities: (1) My Inability To Be Familiar With Anything. I Simply Can't Take Things For Granted. (2) My Endless Patience. I Assume That The Only Way To Find An Answer Is To Hang On Long Enough And Keep Groping.

Our Present Addiction To Pollsters And Forecasters Is A Symptom Of Our Chronic Uncertainty About The Future... We Watch Our Experts Read The Entrails Of Statistical Tables And Graphs The Way The Ancients Watched Their Soothsayers Read The Entrails Of A Chicken.

The Atheist Is A Religious Person. He Believes In Atheism As Though It Were A New Religion. According To Renan, "the Day After That On Which The World Should No Longer Believe In God, Atheists Would Be The Wretchedest Of All Men."

One Wonders Whether A Generation That Demands Instant Satisfaction Of All Its Needs And Instant Solution Of The World's Problems Will Produce Anything Of Lasting Value. Such A Generation, Even When Equipped With The Most Modern Technology, Will Be Essentially Primitive It Will Stand In Awe Of Nature, And Submit To The Tutelage Of Medicine Men.

When People Are Free To Do As They Please, They Usually Imitate Each Other. Originality Is Deliberate And Forced, And Partakes Of The Nature Of A Protest. A Society Which Gives Unlimited Freedom To The Individual, More Often Than Not Attains A Disconcerting Sameness.

It Is Loneliness That Makes The Loudest Noise. This Is True Of Men As Of Dogs.

Faith In Humanity, In Posterity, In The Destiny Of One's Religion, Nation, Race, Party Or Family-what Is It But The Visualization Of That Eternal Something To Which We Attach The Self That Is About To Be Annihilated?

The World Leans On Us. When We Sag, The Whole World Seems To Droop.

The Sense Of Inferiority Inherent In The Act Of Imitation Breeds Resentment. The Impulse Of The Imitators Is To Overcome The Model They Imitate.

[the Designated Or Chosen Leader Tries To] Articulate And Justify The Resentment Dammed Up In The Souls Of The Frustrated. He Kindles The Vision Of A Breathtaking Future So As To Justify The Sacrifice Of A Transitory Present. He Stages The World Of Make-believe So Indispensable For The Realization Of Self-sacrifice And United Action.

The Untalented Are More At Ease In A Society That Gives Them Valid Alibis For Not Achieving Than In One Where Opportunities Are Abundant. In An Affluent Society, The Alienated Who Clamor For Power Are Largely Untalented People Who Cannot Make Use Of The Unprecedented Opportunities For Self-realization, And Cannot Escape The Confrontation With An Ineffectual Self.

It Is Also Plausible That Those Movements With The Greatest Inner Contradiction And Between Profession And Practice - That Is To Say With A Strong Feeling Of Guilt - Are Likely To Be The Most Fervent In Imposing Their Faith On Others.

A Low Capacity For Getting Along With Those Near Us Often Goes Hand In Hand With A High Receptivity To The Idea Of The Brotherhood Of Men.

Brotherhood Of Man

We Run Fastest And Farthest When We Run From Ourselves.

One Of The Marks Of A Truly Vigorous Society Is The Ability To Dispense With Passion As A Midwife Of Action - The Ability To Pass Directly From Thought To Action.

We Can Be Satisfied With Moderate Confidence In Ourselves And With A Moderately Good Opinion Of Ourselves, But The Faith We Have In A Holy Cause Has To Be Extravagant And Uncompromising.

The Hatred And Cruelty Which Have Their Source In Selfishness Are Ineffectual Things Compared With The Venom And Ruthlessness Born Of Selflessness.

A Plant Needs Roots In Order To Grow. With Man It Is The Other Way Around: Only When He Grows Does He Have Roots And Feels At Home In The World.

Self-contempt, However Vague, Sharpens Our Eyes For The Imperfections Of Others. We Usually Strive To Reveal In Others The Blemishes We Hide In Ourselves.

What Are We When We Are Alone? Some, When They Are Alone, Cease To Exist.

The Hardest Thing To Cope With Is Not Selfishness Or Vanity Or Deceitfulness, But Sheer Stupidity.

Though Dissenters Seem To Question Everything In Sight, They Are Actually Bundles Of Dusty Answers And Never Conceived A New Question. What Offends Us Most In The Literature Of Dissent Is The Lack Of Hesitation And Wonder.

Words Have Ruined More Souls Than Any Devil's Agency.

The Monstrous Evils Of The Twentieth Century Have Shown Us That The Greediest Money Grubbers Are Gentle Doves Compared With Money-hating Wolves Like Lenin, Stalin, And Hitler, Who In Less Than Three Decades Killed Or Maimed Nearly A Hundred Million Men, Women, And Children And Brought Untold Suffering To A Large Portion Of Mankind.

We Find It Hard To Apply The Knowledge Of Ourselves To Our Judgment Of Others. The Fact That We Are Never Of One Kind, That We Never Love Without Reservations And Never Hate With All Our Being Cannot Prevent Us From Seeing Others As Wholly Black Or White.

When Grubbing For Necessities Man Is Still An Animal. He Becomes Uniquely Human When He Reaches Out For The Superfluous And Extravagant.

Where Freedom Is Real, Equality Is The Passion Of The Masses. Where Equality Is Real, Freedom Is The Passion Of A Small Minority.

There Is A Perfect Ant, A Perfect Bee, But Man Is Perpetually Unfinished...moreover, The Incurable Unfinishedness Keeps Man Perpetually Immature, Perpetually Capable Of Learning And Growing.

We Have Perhaps A Natural Fear Of Ends. We Would Rather Be Always On The Way Than Arrive. Given The Means, We Hang On To Them And Often Forget The Ends.

Unless A Man Has Talents To Make Something Of Himself, Freedom Is An Irksome Burden. Of What Avail Is Freedom To Choose If The Self Be Ineffectual? We Join A Mass Movement To Escape Individual Responsibility, Or, In The Words Of The Ardent Young Nazi, "to Be Free From Freedom."

All Leaders Strive To Turn Their Followers Into Children.

It Is Startling To Realize How Much Unbelief Is Necessary To Make Belief Possible.

The Ability To Get Along Without An Exceptional Leader Is The Mark Of Social Vigor.

Passionate Hatred Can Give Meaning And Purpose To An Empty Life.

The Future Belongs To The Learners-not The Knowers.

The Devil Personifies Not The Nature That Is Around Us But The Nature That Is Within Us- The Infinitely Ferocious And Cunning Prehuman Creature That Is Still Within Us, Sealed In The Subconscious Cellars Of The Psyche.

The Readiness To Praise Others Indicates A Desire For Excellence And Perhaps An Ability To Realize It.

Facts Are Counterrevolutionary.

There Is No Doubt That In Exchanging A Self-centered For A Selfless Life We Gain Enormously In Self-esteem. The Vanity Of The Selfless, Even Those Who Practice Utmost Humility, Is Boundless.

The Creative Mind Is The Playful Mind. Philosophy Is The Play And Dance Of Ideas.

People Unfit For Freedom - Who Cannot Do Much With It - Are Hungry For Power. The Desire For Freedom Is An Attribute Of A "have" Type Of Self. It Says: Leave Me Alone And I Shall Grow, Learn, And Realize My Capacities. The Desire For Power Is Basically An Attribute Of A "have Not" Type Of Self.

There Is No Alienation That A Little Power Will Not Cure.

Thought Is A Process Of Exaggeration. The Refusal To Exaggerate Is Not Infrequently An Alibi For The Disinclination To Think Or Praise.

Exaggeration Is

To Make Of Human Affairs A Coherent, Precise, Predictable Whole One Must Ignore Or Suppress Man As He Really Is. It Is By Eliminating Man From Their Equation That The Makers Of History Can Predict The Future, And The Writers Of History Can Give A Pattern To The Past.

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.

Those Who Are In Love With The Present Can Be Cruel And Corrupt But Not Genuinely Vicious. They Cannot Be Methodically And Consistently Ruthless.

When We Believe Ourselves In Possession Of The Only Truth, We Are Likely To Be Indifferent To Common Everyday Truths.

We Feel Free When We Escape - Even If It Be But From The Frying Pan To The Fire.

Children Are The Keys Of Paradise.

When We Are In Competition With Ourselves, And Match Our Todays Against Our Yesterdays, We Derive Encouragement From Past Misfortunes And Blemishes. Moreover, The Competition With Ourselves Leaves Unimpaired Our Benevolence Toward Our Fellow Men.

It Is Remarkable By How Much A Pinch Of Malice Enhances The Penetrating Power Of An Idea Or An Opinion. Our Ears, It Seems, Are Wonderfully Attuned To Sneers And Evil Reports About Our Fellow Men.

The Chief Burden Of The Frustrated Is The Consciousness Of A Blemished, Ineffectual Self, And Their Chief Desire Is To Slough Off The Unwanted Self And Begin A New Life. They Try To Realize This Desire Either By Finding A New Identity Or By Blurring And Camouflaging Their Individual Distinctness; And Both These Ends Are Reached By Imitation.

There Is In Most Passions A Shrinking Away From Ourselves. The Passionate Pursuer Has All The Earmarks Of A Fugitive.

For Many People, An Excuse Is Better Than An Achievement Because An Achievement, No Matter How Great, Leaves You Having To Prove Yourself Again In The Future; But An Excuse Can Last For Life.

Both The Revolutionary And The Creative Individual Are Perpetual Juveniles. The Revolutionary Does Not Grow Up Because He Cannot Grow, While The Creative Individual Cannot Grow Up Because He Keeps Growing.

There Are Many Who Have Grave Scruples About Deceiving But Think It As Nothing To Deceive Themselves.

Faith, Enthusiasm, And Passionate Intensity In General Are Substitutes For The Self-confidence Born Of Experience And The Possession Of Skill. Where There Is The Necessary Skill To Move Mountains There Is No Need For The Faith That Moves Mountains.

Self Confidence

We Are Ready To Die For An Opinion But Not For A Fact

A Man Is Likely To Mind His Own Business When It Is Worth Minding. When It Is Not, He Takes His Mind Off His Own Meaningless Affairs By Minding Other People's Business.this Minding Of Other People's Business Expresses Itself In Gossip, Snooping And Meddling, And Also In Feverish Interest In Communal, National And Racial Affairs. In Running Away From Ourselves We Either Fall On Our Neighbor's Shoulder Or Fly At His Throat.

The Aspiration Toward Freedom Is The Most Essentially Human Of All Human Manifestations.

Wordiness Is A Sickness Of American Writing. Too Many Words Dilute And Blur Ideas.

Fear Comes From Uncertainty. When We Are Absolutely Certain, Whether Of Our Worth Or Worthlessness, We Are Almost Impervious To Fear. Thus A Feeling Of Utter Unworthiness Can Be A Source Of Courage.

No Matter What Our Achievements Might Be, We Think Well Of Ourselves Only In Rare Moments.

The Capacity For Getting Along With Our Neighbor Depends To A Large Extent On The Capacity For Getting Along With Ourselves. The Self-respecting Individual Will Try To Be As Tolerant Of His Neighbor's Shortcomings As He Is Of His Own.

The Individual Who Has To Justify His Existence By His Own Efforts Is In Eternal Bondage To Himself.

There Is Always A Chance That He Who Sets Himself Up As His Brother's Keeper Will End Up By Being His Jail-keeper.

To Spell Out The Obvious Is Often To Call It In Question.

Up To Now, America Has Not Been A Good Milieu For The Rise Of A Mass Movement. What Starts Out Here As A Mass Movement Ends Up As A Racket, A Cult, Or A Corporation.

Nature Is A Self-made Machine, More Perfectly Automated Than Any Automated Machine. To Create Something In The Image Of Nature Is To Create A Machine, And It Was By Learning The Inner Working Of Nature That Man Became A Builder Of Machines.

To Learn You Need A Certain Degree Of Confidence, Not Too Much And Not Too Little. If You Have Too Little Confidence, You Will Think You Can't Learn. If You Have Too Much, You Will Think You Don't Have To Learn.

To Think Out A Problem Is Not Unlike Drawing A Caricature. You Have To Exaggerate The Salient Point And Leave Out That Which Is Not Typical. "to Illustrate A Principle ," Says Bagehot , "you Must Exaggerate Much And You Must Omit Much." As To The Quantity Of Absolute Truth In A Thought : It Seems To Me The More Comprehensive And Unobjectionable A Thought Becomes, The More Clumsy And Unexciting It Gets. I Like Half-truths Of A Certain Kind They Are Interesting And They Stimulate.

All Great Art Is Revolutionary Because It Touches Upon The Reality Of Man And Questions The Reality Of The Various Transitory Forms Of Human Society.

An Empty Head Is Not Really Empty; It Is Stuffed With Rubbish. Hence The Difficulty Of Forcing Anything Into An Empty Head.

We Are More Prone To Generalize The Bad Than The Good. We Assume That The Bad Is More Potent And Contagious.

In Products Of The Human Mind, Simplicity Marks The End Of A Process Of Refining, While Complexity Marks A Primitive Stage. Michelangelo 's Definition Of Art As The Purgation Of Superfluities Suggests That The Creative Effort Consists Largely In The Elimination Of That Which Complicates And Confuses A Pattern.

Creativity Is The Ability To Introduce Order Into The Randomness Of Nature.

People Haunted By The Purposelessness Of Their Lives Try To Find A New Content Not Only By Dedicating Themselves To A Holy Cause But Also By Nursing A Fanatical Grievance. A Mass Movement Offers Them Unlimited Opportunities For Both.

The Chemistry Of Dissatisfaction Is As The Chemistry Of Some Marvelously Potent Tar. In It Are The Building Stones Of Explosives, Stimulants, Poisons, Opiates, Perfumes And Stenches.

Every Successful Person Has Had Failures But Repeated Failure Is No Guarantee Of Eventual Success

Resistance, Whether To One's Appetites Or To The Ways Of The World, Is A Chief Factor In The Shaping Of Character.

Communists Are Frustrated Capitalists.

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.

Ours Is A Golden Age Of Minorities. At No Time In The Past Have Dissident Minorities Felt So Much At Home And Had So Much Room To Throw Their Weight Around. They Speak And Act As If They Were "the People," And What They Abominate Most Is The Dissent Of The Majority.

Marriage Has For Women Many Equivalents Of Joining A Mass Movement. It Offers Them A New Purpose In Life, A New Future And A New Identity (a New Name). The Boredom Of Spinsters And Of Women Who Can No Longer Find Joy And Fulfillment In Marriage Stems From An Awareness Of A Barren, Spoiled Life. By Embracing A Holy Cause And Dedicating Their Energies And Substance To Its Advancement, They Find A New Life Full Of Purpose And Meaning.

Vehemence Is The Expression Of A Blind Effort To Support And Uphold Something That Can Never Stand On Its Own. Whether It Is Our Own Meaningless Self We Are Upholding, Or Some Doctrine Devoid Of Evidence, We Can Do It Only In A Frenzy Of Faith.

Those In Possession Of Absolute Power Can Not Only Prophesy And Make Their Prophecies Come True, But They Can Also Lie And Make Their Lies Come True.

Originality Is Deliberate And Forced, And Partakes Of The Nature Of A Protest.

It Is A Juvenile Notion That A Society Needs A Lofty Purpose And A Shining Vision To Achieve Much. Both In The Market Place And On The Battlefield Men Who Set Their Hearts On Toys Have Often Displayed Unequal Initiative And Drive. And One Must Be Ignorant Of The Creative Process To Look For A Close Correspondence Between Motive And Achievement In The World Of Thought And Imagination.

Some People Have No Original Ideas Because They Do Not Think Well Enough Of Themselves To Consider Their Ideas Worth Noticing And Developing.

It Is Probably True That Business Corrupts Everything It Touches. It Corrupts Politics, Sports, Literature, Art, Labor Unions And So On. But Business Also Corrupts And Undermines Monolithic Totalitarianism. Capitalism Is At Its Liberating Best In A Noncapitalist Environment.

First Something Is A Great Idea, Then It Becomes A Cause, Then It Becomes A Business And Finally It Becomes A Racket.

It Is A Talent Of The Weak To Persuade Themselves That They Suffer For Something When They Suffer From Something; That They Are Showing The Way When They Are Running Away; That They See The Light When They Feel The Heat; That They Are Chosen When They Are Shunned.

True Loyalty Between Individuals Is Possible Only In A Loose And Relatively Free Society.

The Effectiveness Of A Doctrine Does Not Come From Its Meaning But From Its Certitude. No Doctrine However Profound And Sublime Will Be Effective Unless It Is Presented As The Embodiment Of The One And Only Truth

Man Is The Only Creature That Strives To Surpass Himself, And Yearns For The Impossible.

The Truth Seems To Be That Propaganda On Its Own Cannot Force Its Way Into Unwilling Minds; Neither Can It Inculcate Something Wholly New; Nor Can It Keep People Persuaded Once They Have Ceased To Believe. It Penetrates Into Minds Already Open, And Rather Than Instill Opinion It Articulates And Justifies Opinions Already Present In The Minds Of Its Recipients.

Actual Creativeness Is A Matter Of Moments. One Has To Piece Together The Minute Grains To Make A Lump. And It Is So Easy To Miss The Momentary Flashes, It Is Like Sluicing In Placer Mining. He Who Lets The Flakes Float By Has Nothing To Show For His Trouble.

Men Of Thought Seldom Work Well Together, Whereas Between Men Of Action There Is Usually An Easy Camaraderie.

The Individual's Most Vital Need Is To Prove His Worth, And This Usually Means An Insatiable Hunger For Action. For It Is Only The Few Who Can Acquire A Sense Of Worth By Developing And Employing Their Capacities And Talents. The Majority Prove Their Worth By Keeping Busy.

Insatiable Hunger

Our Sense Of Power Is More Vivid When We Break A Man's Spirit Than When We Win His Heart.

Far More Crucial Than What We Know Or Do Not Know Is What We Do Not Want To Know. One Often Obtains A Clue To A Person's Nature By Discovering The Reasons For His Or Her Imperviousness To Certain Impressions.

In A Time Of Drastic Change, It Is The Learners Who Inherit The Future.

Trending Author

John James Audubon

Maria Edgeworth

Meister Eckhart

Category