The True Believer Quotes

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“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.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“A movement is pioneered by men of words, materialized by fanatics and consolidated by men of action.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The permanent misfits can find salvation only in a complete separation from the self; and they usually find it by losing themselves in the compact collectivity of a mass movement.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Scratch an intellectual, and you find a would-be aristocrat who loathes the sight, the sound and the smell of common folk.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“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.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

“Things which are not" are indeed mightier than "things that are". In all ages men have fought most desperately for beautiful cities yet to be built and gardens yet to be planted.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“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. 2.10.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The enemy—the indispensible devil of every mass movement—is omnipresent. He plots both outside and inside the ranks of the faithful. It is his voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges. If anything goes wrong within the movement, it is his doing. It is the sacred duty of the true believer to be suspicious. He must be constantly on the lookout for saboteurs, spies and traitors.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“There is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“خلافنا مع العالم صدى للخلاف المستمر ��داخلنا.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

“The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a God or not. The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“يعاني أتباع الأديان السامية شعورا بالذنب عندما تتسع الهوة بين تعاليم دينهم وواقعهم المليء بالمعاصي، وعندما يدخل التطرف الصورة فإن الشعور بالذنب يتحول إلى كراهية سافرة، وهكذا نجد كل ما ازداد التطرف عند أتباع مذهب ما - مهما كان هذا المذهب ساميا - كلما نما لديهم شعورا بالكراهية”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience... The desire to escape or camouflage their unsatisfactory selves develops in the frustrated a facility for pretending -- for making a show -- and also a readiness to identify themselves wholly with an imposing spectacle.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague; and if neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its least worthy members. Though manifestly unfair, this tendency has some justification. For the character and destiny of a group are often determined by its inferior elements.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“Unless a man has the 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.’ It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“كلما استحال على الإنسان أن يدعي التفوق لنفسه، كلما سهل عليه يدّعي التفوق لأمته، أو لدينه أو لعرقه، أو لقضيته المقدسة.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like giving a 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.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

“عندما يثور الناس في مجتمع ديكتاتوري، فإنهم لا يثورون على ظلم النظام، بل على ضعفه”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements