Eric Hoffer Quotes

In order to have influence, you have to be influenced.

Culture affects development and development affects culture as well.

I think we all change each other's paths. I don't know which law idea that is in physics, but I don't think any of us can live without affecting one another.

Whenever your life touches mine, you make me stronger of weaker... there is no escape... people drag others or lift others up.

You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence.

We're as much influenced by everybody else as they are by us, if they are. It's just all a part of the big thing.

I need them as much as they need me.

What I do affects others; what others do affects me.

The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other.

The secret of the world is the tie between person and event. Person makes event and event person.

we should think not only of what the leader does to the group, but also of what the group does to the leader.

What is being said is the effect of something that has happened; at the same time, what is being said is in itself something happening, which will, in turn, leave its effect.

Perhaps there is no such thing as unilateral power. After all, the man in power depends on receiving information all the time from outside. He responds to that information just as much as he causes things to happen... it is an interaction, and not a lineal situation.

Economics, politics, and personalities are often inseparable.

You cannot do only one thing.

I played one game, and one game played me.

I believe in the brotherhood of all men, but I don't believe in wasting brotherhood on anyone who doesn't want to practice it with me. Brotherhood is a two-way street.

The success of each is dependent upon the success of the other.

Babies control and bring up their families as much as they are controlled by them; in fact the family brings up baby by being brought up by him.

Does not a man physically tremble under the mere look of a wild beast or fellow-man that is stronger than himself? Does not a woman redden all over when she feels her lover's eyes on her? How then should one doubt the mysterious power of one individual over another?

Almost all of our relationships begin and most of them continue as forms of mutual exploitation, a mental or physical barter, to be terminated when one or both parties run out of goods.

The weak are more likely to make the strong weak than the strong are likely to make the weak strong.

I have an interesting perspective on depending on others. I think it gives people a chance to serve. And I'm not so much big on independence, as I am on interdependence. I'm not talking about co-dependency, I'm talking about giving people the opportunity to practicing love with its sleeves rolled up.

Everything is politics.

By what criterion... can we distinguish among the numberless effects, that are also causes, and among the causes that may, for aught we can know, be also effects, - how can we distinguish which are the means and which are the ends?