Eric Hoffer Quotes

I believe in political solutions to political problems. But man's primary problems aren't political; they're philosophical. Until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they're condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. It's a cruel, repetitious bore.

I really believe that 'Saw' makes us stop and think and question our motives and what we're doing here on Earth.

Very rarely do people make big compromises with their integrity. Almost every compromise is a small one that is easily justified. The downhill slide is usually a result of many little compromises.

If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you.

I was lucky. I had some really good people that were just here there and wherever who would come into my life that I felt would answer questions. I mean, I had some very powerful questions myself for what this earth was all about.

I can only say that, while my own opinions as to ethics do not satisfy me, other people's satisfy me still less.

The greatest sci-fis, in my mind, are two things: They're what-ifs - what if this happened, and you get to see it - but they're also these philosophical cautionary tales. They deal with the underlying themes beneath the what-if.

Science fiction tends to be philosophy for stupid people.

Hence the sterile, uninspiring futility of a great many theoretical discussions of ethics, and the resentment which many people feel towards such discussions: moral principles remain in their minds as floating abstractions, offering them a goal they cannot grasp and demanding that they reshape their souls in its image, thus leaving them with a burden of undefinable moral guilt.

Large numbers of young people are waking up. And they are saying, "We are not here just to work for multinational corporations and make money for them. We are here to live. We have to find the meaning of life."

I'm a very good decision maker because I have core set of principles and so I can make decisions. Decisions can be very hard and you have to wrestle with them, but I'm able to get all the data on the table and figure out what would be the best decision because decisions mean ill for some people and mean positives for others.

A lot of people see doubt as legitimate philosophical posture. They think of themselves in the middle, whereas of course really, they're nowhere.

But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism.

But in the end, science does not provide the answers most of us require. Its story of our origins and of our end is, to say the least, unsatisfactory. To the question, "How did it all begin?", science answers, "Probably by an accident." To the question, "How will it all end?", science answers, "Probably by an accident." And to many people, the accidental life is not worth living. Moreover, the science-god has no answer to the question, "Why are we here?" and, to the question, "What moral instructions do you give us?", the science-god maintains silence.

To be a philosopher... is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted outside philosophy and they die if these roots decay.

With regard to philosophical metaphysics, I always see increasing numbers who have attained to the negative goal, but as yet few who climb a few rungs backwards; one ought to look out, perhaps, over the last steps of the ladder, but not try to stand upon them.

Everyone is looking for a purpose in life. The reason we all go to the cinema, or online, is because we haven't found a purpose yet. We are always wondering why we're here. But I've learned that we have to create that purpose for ourselves. My purpose, which I finally found thanks to social media, is helping all of these people find their purpose.

There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal. Personally, I cannot imagine a more alarming situation.

Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?

In a way, I think religion is to be admired for asking the right questions. I just think it's got the wrong answers.

We are all of us born, live and die in the shadow of a giant question mark that refers to three questions: Where do we come from? Why? And where, oh where, are we going!

my friends don't seem to be friends at all but people whose phone numbers I haven't lost.

For many people, morality means a set of rules governing the disposition on one's genital organs; or a set of injunctions against lying, stealing, or killing except when such acts are sanctioned by church or state.

The survival of democracy depends on the ability of large numbers of people to make realistic choices in the light of adequate information.