Frasi di Eric Hoffer

pagina 6

“Puoi scoprire ciò che più teme il tuo nemico osservando i mezzi di cui si serve per spaventarti.”

“La coscienza di un'anima è proporzionata al numero di verità che può sopportare.”

“Non c'è solitudine più grande della solitudine di un fallito. Il fallito è un estraneo nella sua stessa casa.”

“Per conoscere la religione di una persona non dobbiamo ascoltare la fede che dice di professare, ma dobbiamo trovare il suo tipo di intolleranza.”

“La cosa notevole è che noi davvero amiamo il nostro prossimo come noi stessi: noi facciamo agli altri quello che vorremmo fosse fatto a noi stessi. Noi odiamo gli altri quando odiamo noi stessi. Noi siamo tolleranti verso gli altri quando tolleriamo noi stessi. Noi perdoniamo gli altri quando noi perdoniamo noi stessi. Noi siamo proni a sacrificare gli altri quando siamo pronti a sacrificare noi stessi.”

“Noi non ci sentiamo veramente grati nei confronti di quelle persone che fanno realizzare i nostri sogni; esse rovinano i nostri sogni.”

“Quando le persone sono libere di fare a modo loro, in genere si mettono ad imitarsi a vicenda.”

“La maleducazione è un'imitazione di forza dell'uomo debole.”

“A volte sentiamo la perdita di un pregiudizio come perdita di vigore.”

“Anche l'imprevedibilità può diventare monotona.”

“Aver subito un'ingiustizia è avere uno scopo nella vita.”

“Gli uomini si stancano tanto perché non fanno le cose che vogliono fare quanto perché fanno le cose che non vogliono fare.”

“I fatti sono controrivoluzionari.”

“L'individuo che deve giustificare la propria esistenza attraverso i propri sforzi è eternamente schiavo di se stesso.”

“L'inizio del pensiero è il disaccordo – non solo con gli altri ma anche con noi stessi.”

“La fede assoluta corrompe in modo altrettanto assoluto quanto il potere assoluto.”

“La giovinezza in se stessa è un talento non duraturo.”

“La dissipazione è una forma di autosacrificio.”

“Quando ci sono le capacità tecniche necessarie a smuovere le montagne, non c'è bisogno della fede che smuove le montagne.”

“Quando crediamo di possedere l'unica verità, è probabile che siamo indifferenti alle normali verità quotidiane.”

“Quando si automatizza un'industria la si rende più moderna; ma quando si tenta di farlo con la vita, la si rende primitiva.”

“Siamo più predisposti a generalizzare il cattivo del buono. Sostenendo che il cattivo è più potente e contagioso.”

“Siamo soliti pensare che una rivoluzione sia causa di profondi cambiamenti. In realtà accade proprio il contrario: il cambiamento prepara gli animi alla rivoluzione.”

“Un castigo spesso implica che facciamo a noi stessi quello che abbiamo fatto ad altri.”

“Un uomo in grado di trasformare gli ostacoli in opportunità dimostra di possedere una profonda umanità.”

“Mi aggrappo ai miei pregiudizi, sono i testicoli della mia mente.”

“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.”