Eric Hoffer Quotes

Whoever hesitates while waiting for ideas to triumph among the masses before initiating revolutionary action will never be a revolutionary... Humanity will, of course, change; human society will, of course, continue to develop - in spite of men and the errors of men. But that is not a revolutionary attitude.

We're afraid to move on, that's why there's so much nostalgia on the internet... 'cause we don't wanna look forward, that's scary.

There's a huge difference in the attitude of the people of the United States of America toward women in politics. It has taken an enormous turn toward equality.

The future is only scary if we try to avoid it.

My biggest hope that we're going to make it here is that this thinking is being manifested & really employed by the young world. Will they be going fast enough to overcome the initiatives of the bureaucracies & the fears operative in those bureaucracies? It's a very touch & go question.

I think looking forward will be better than looking back.

I do not want to go back to the past; I want to go back to the past way of facing the future.

My idea is always to avoid nostalgia.

You have to try and embrace it all and everyone who represents that change because it is happening.

To resist change, to try to cling to life, is therefore like holding your breath: if you persist you kill yourself.

...can I tell you something...? I don't think you're in love with the past. I think you're scared of the future.

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.

Our fear of technology is really a fear of empowerment. We now have the ability to design the reality we live in, and we have to step up to the occasion.

In place of the old beliefs of a civilization based on godliness, judgment and historical loyalty, young people are given the new beliefs of a society based on equality and inclusion, and are told that the judgment of other lifestyles is a crime. ... The "non-judgmental" attitude towards other cultures goes hand-in-hand with a fierce denunciation of the culture that might have been one's own

The cumulative effect of each person making a change in his or her own life will make a difference.

I'd say I'm a revolutionary optimist. I believe that the good guys -the people- are going to win.

It may be tempting to look back and wring our hands over missed opportunities for change in the preceding decades. But, I'm not interested at looking in the rearview mirror except to learn.

There are all kinds of different forms of public service, but there's no form of public service that can make more difference for more people than partisan political activity.

People don't believe that their actions really and truly are going to make a difference. But kids get it. They know. And they get all excited about the difference they're making.

What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be only the out-growth of our own perverted life; and though we may endeavor to cut them down and extirpate them by means of law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of human life and character are radically improved.

Tradition was safety; change was danger.

I am confident that the next century will be better than this one.

We are too focused on avoiding criticism and not enough on making a difference.

Changes before your eyes, things you can do and things you can't. My attitude is always let it keep rolling.

The age which we live in is not suited to idle complacency or to pleasant dreams of past greatness.