Эрик Хоффер цитаты

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„Если мы окружены крысами, значит, корабль не идет ко дну.“

„Грубость — это потуги слабого продемонстрировать силу. Хамство — это имитация силы слабым человеком.“

„Центральная задача образования – воспитать желание и способность учиться; образовательная система должна производить не обученных, а обучающихся людей. Истинно гуманное общество есть общество обучающееся, в котором учащимися являются одновременно и деды, и отцы, и дети. Во времена крутых перемен будущее принадлежит тем, кто способен учиться. Именно такие люди обычно оказываются способными выжить в мире, которого больше нет.“

„Чтобы побудить душу к действию, мы должны нарушить душевное равновесие.“

„Лидер должен быть прагматиком и реалистом, но говорить должен языком мечтателя и идеалиста.“

„Нигде более не найти такой всепоглощающей ненависти к своей стране у образованных людей, как в Америке.“

„Когда люди вольны поступать как угодно, они обычно подражают друг другу.“

„Власть портит не так уж много людей, а недостатки портят многих.“

„Низшие элементы народа могут оказывать заметное влияние на ход событий потому, что они абсолютно не ценят настоящего. Свои собственные жизни и всё настоящее они считают непоправимо испорченными, а потому и то и другое готовы разбазарить и разрушить до основания: отсюда их безрассудство и стремление к хаосу и анархии. Они ещё страстно стремятся растворить свои исковерканные и бессмысленные «я» в каком-то душеспасительном общественном спектакле - отсюда их склонность к объединенным действиям.“

„Неудовлетворённые встречаются на всех ступенях жизни, однако больше всего их в следующих категориях:“

„Многие прозрения святого проистекают из его опыта как грешника.“

„Лучший стимул для бега вперед — иметь позади что-то такое, от чего приходится убегать.“

„Поиски счастья — основной источник несчастья.“

„Мы абсолютно уверены только в том, чего не понимаем.“

„Мы лжем громче, когда лжем себе.“

„Истинноверующий: мысли о природе массовых движений“

“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.”

“The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.”

“A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past. (1954), p. 75”

“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.”

“I have never felt that I had a thought too profound for others to understand. On the contrary, it always seemed to me axiomatic that what was clear to me should be clear and easy to everyone else. This despite the fact that it often took me years to grope my way to an idea…. I can spend days and even months on a single sentence. I do not know how to skip. To think and write with me is like putting brick on brick.”

“By circumstance and perhaps also by inclination, I think in complete intellectual isolation. To expect others to help me think seems to me almost like expecting them to help me digest my food.”

“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.”

“A good sentence is a key. It unlocks the mind of the reader.”

“Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.”

“To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats — we know it not.”

“You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others — that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.”

“Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.”

“We tend today to exaggerate the effectiveness of persuasion as a means of inculcating opinion and shaping behavior. …Actually the fabulous effects ascribed to propaganda have no greater foundation in fact than the fall of the walls of Jericho ascribed to the blast of Joshua's trumpets.”

“The most incurably frustrated—and, therefore, the most vehement—among the permanent misfits are those with an unfulfilled craving for creative work. Both those who try to write, paint, compose, etcetera, and fail decisively, and those who after tasting the elation of creativeness feel a drying up of the creative flow within and know that never again will they produce aught worthwhile, are alike in the grip of a desperate passion. Neither fame nor power nor riches nor even monumental achievements in other fields can still their hunger. Even the wholehearted dedication to a holy cause does not always cure them. Their unappeased hunger persists, and they are likely to become the most violent extremists in the service of their holy cause.”

“The Renaissance was a time of mercenary soldiers, ours is a time of mercenary labor.”

“Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.”

“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.”

“The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than of deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without.”

“There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing — as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect.”

“Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals; yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.”

“There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses.”

“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.”

“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”

“God alone is satisfied with what He is and can proclaim: "I am what I am." Unlike God, man strives with all his might to be what he is not. He incessantly proclaims: "I am what I am not."”

“To spell out the obvious is often to call it in question.”

“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.”

“It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.”

“Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.”

“The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility.”