Eric Hoffer Quotes

Those who know nothing must believe everything.

Doubt is the offspring of knowledge: the savage never doubts at all.

People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

Incredulity is the wisdom of the fool.

Who doesn't know anything, has to believe everything.

He who knows what he is told must know a lot of things that are not so.

Belief is in ignorance. If you know, you know. And it is good that if you don’t know, know that you don’t know — the belief can deceive you. The belief can create an atmosphere in your mind, where, without knowing, you start thinking that you know. Belief is not trust, and the more strongly you say that you believe totally, the more you are afraid of the doubt within you.

Sceptics are yet the most credulous.

Credulity is belief in slight evidence, with no evidence, or against evidence.

I don't consider myself to be that credulous.

It is easier to believe than to doubt.

My parents were like the kind of people who read the 'Enquirer' and believed everything it said.

Most people are sceptical about the wrong things and gullible about the wrong things.

He doubts nothing who knows nothing.

When did ignorance become a point of view?

Too much doubt is better than too much credulity.

I know nothing and perhaps I never will.

He that believes all misseth; he that believes nothing, hits not.

And you know, I believed him. What girl wouldn't?

No one knows anything for sure.

If fallacies come knocking at my door,I'd rather feed, and shelter full a score,Than hide behind the black portcullis, doubt,And run the risk of barring one Truth out.And if pretension for a time deceive,And prove me one too ready to believe,Far less my shame, than if by stubborn act,I brand as lie, some great colossal Fact.

If smart people are parodying it, that's a sure sign that some less smart people are believing it.

It takes two people to make a lie work: the person who tells it, and the one who believes it.

No one knows anything, really. It's all rented, or borrowed.

More persons, on the whole, are humbugged by believing in nothing, than by believing too much.