Eric Hoffer Quotes

Every man is a potential genius until he does something.

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.

I probably have genius. But no talent.

Many African people are smarter than me - kids who could have been better. I have no claim for genius.

Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.

People think I must have been so talented at an early age, but I don't know - was it talent or hard work? Who knows?

Nobody told me I was a child prodigy.

I know a lot of incredibly, profoundly talented, skilled people that aren't given certain opportunities or any opportunities, and that aren't working.

The thing about the movie 'Navy SEALs' is that it was just such a waste. The script could've been shaped to be much better, and you just hate to see all that talent and passion go to waste.

There are great actors we'll never see just because they haven't had my luck.

There are plenty of people I've seen and thought that person is funny, or that person is really talented, and they've got something, but maybe the buying public doesn't see the same thing I see, or the stars don't align in the right way for them.

Every age might perhaps produce one or two geniuses, if they were not sunk under the censure and obloquy of plodding, servile, imitating pedants.

Rather than admire the mediocre great men over whom passersby nudge each other in awe, I venerate the young, unknown geniuses who die in their teens, their souls shattered - delicate, phosphorescent glowworms that one must see to know they really did exist.

Genius and great abilities are often wanting; sometimes, only opportunities. Some deserve praise for what they have done; others for what they would have done.

If two men who were friends in their youth meet again when they are old, after being separated for a life-time, the chief feeling they will have at the sight of each other will be one of complete disappointment at life as a whole; because their thoughts will be carried back to that earlier time when life seemed so fair as it lay spread out before them in the rosy light of dawn, promised so much — and then performed so little.

I'm perpetually curious as to what happened to all those supposed prodigies who were singled out while I and my coterie of far more interesting malcontents passed on.

Genius is full of trash.

The richest genius, like the most fertile soil, when uncultivated, shoots up into the rankest weeds.

My father always said, 'The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.'

If geniuses can sometimes make mistakes, cannot the rest of us on occasion be geniuses?

Lermontov died at age twenty-eight and wrote more than have you and I put together. Talent is recognizable not only by quality, but also by the quantity it yields.

Genius has no youth, but starts with the ripeness of age and old experience.

Wit is the god of moments, but Genius is the god of ages.

Talent is more erotic when it's wasted.

The saddest thing in life is wasted talent