The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.
-- Eric Hoffer
In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
-- Eric Hoffer
The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
-- Eric Hoffer
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
-- Eric Hoffer
Free men are aware of the imperfections 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, and so on are far from absolute, that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect.
The refection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestations of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.
-- Eric Hoffer
The Renaissance was a time of mercenary soldiers, ours is a time of mercenary labor.
-- Eric Hoffer
The significant point is that 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. If Hitler had had the talents and the temperament of a genuine artist, if Stalin had had the capacity to become a first-rate theoretician, if Napoleon had had the makings of a great poet or philosopher they would hardly have developed the all-consuming lust for absolute power.
Freedom gives us a chance to realize our human and individual uniqueness. Absolute power can also bestow uniqueness: to have absolute power is to have the power to reduce all the people around us to puppets, robots, toys, or animals, and be the only man in sight. Absolute power achieves uniqueness by dehumanizing others.
To sum up: Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
-- Eric Hoffer
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