Eric Hoffer Quotes

You do not notice changes in what is always before you.

Competent people are the most resistant to change

I now realize that I was very fortunate to have grown up in many different places, surrounded by all kinds of people, all kinds of points of view.

Small town people assume you are a friend if you simply remember their names.

It is a foolish man who believes that the status quo can be maintained indefinitely.

Familiarity can blind too.

Ninety-eight percent are boxes, which tells me that a lot of people are in denial. We live and work in boxes. People don't even notice that. Most of what's around us is banal. We live with it. We accept it as inevitable. People say, "This is the world the way it is, and don't bother me." Then when somebody does something different, real architecture, the push-back is amazing. People resist it. At first it's new and scary.

Common sense does not ask an impossible chessboard, but takes the one before it and plays the game.

Blind people do not need a name, I am my voice, nothing else matters.

Surely people should eventually cease to be surprised at anything? And yet they continue to be.

You can't disengage yourself from that game if you are completely unaware of what people out there might be doing, you're just going to be tripped up, you're going to find yourself continually at a disadvantage.

Yes, well, principles are sometimes the problem, if you ask me,' said Miles. 'Often what's needed is a bit of common sense.' 'Which is the name people usually give to their prejudices,' rejoined Kay.

I understand that change is frightening for people, especially if there's nothing to go to. It's best to stay where you are. I understand that.

Some people don't even notice. "Oh, you sound exactly like you did!" And I say, "OK, if that's what you want to believe, that's fine."

Looking at the Moonies from the normal, common-sense point of view, we certainly appear to be a bunch of crazy people!

They might have been all-right people doing the best they could, but I got to tell you, you got a dead cat lying in your yard you ought to bury it. That’s my motto.

A lot of people just capitulate and say, "Well, that's just the way things are." I think that can be deadly for creative people.

Sometimes people in search of a better fishing hole can't see the body of water in front of them.

People do not plan to mess up their lives. They just don't plan not to.

If you want to have longevity, then I think that you have to have a point of view, but at the same time still be elastic. Things evolve, the world changes, but people have to know you for who you are so they know what you stand for.

Some people spend their lives failing and never notice.

Habituation puts to sleep the eye of our judgment.

My sense was that most of the elected officials in Washington - in their heart of hearts - really believe that the system can't be too bad because it produced them. And when people in power can stay in power they do very little to tinker with the apparatus that put them in power. We've seen it time after time after time.

When you do not change up a lot, people may know you a lot better than they should.

Almost in the same way as earlier physicists are said to have found suddenly that they had too little mathematical understanding to be able to master physics; we may say that young people today are suddenly in the position that ordinary common sense no longer suffices to meet the strange demands life makes. Everything has become so intricate that for its mastery an exceptional degree of understanding is required. For it is not enough any longer to be able to play the game well; but the question is again and again: what sort of game is to be played now anyway?