Eric Hoffer Quotes

We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes

Like so many kids, I just wanted to fit in, and I see now that I spent most of my life trying to be what I wasn't, trying to get people to like me.

Very often, people are obsessed with what others think of them. It's like if a flower wants to be a cactus or a palm but it's not. A flower is a flower, and that's enough. That's all you have to do is be a flower.

Having to stake out your identity and have people question whether or not you're being yourself was a tension that I could relate to.

I remember in middle school and high school being so concerned with what everybody else thought. I was trying to be someone I wasn't. I wish I could've just let it slide and not cared about it.

Comparison is a brutal assault upon one's self. Once you compare yourself to someone else, what you're really saying is that what you're made of isn't good enough.

Better than other people.' Sometimes he says: 'That, at least, you are.' But more often: 'Why should you be? Either you are what you can be, or you are not - like other people.

Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our life trying to satisfy other people's demands. We have learned to live by other people's points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else.

Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts.

You just want something else that someone else has, but that doesn't mean what you have isn't beautiful, because people always want what you have, and you always want what they have - no one is ever 100 per cent like, 'Yes, I'm the bomb dot com - from head to toe!'

I just want to be like other people that are normal.

When I was younger, I was afraid to be myself.

We all want to be someone else but without ceasing to be ourselves. I think it's very important to defend this idea in real life too.

Why can't I be the adorable one?

Women always want to be what they're not: If you're the pretty girl, you want to be the quirky girl. If you're the smart girl, you want to be the pretty girl.

I always wanted to be an actress. And it wasn't ego. I felt so little about myself, considered myself such a sparrow. Not just my size. I thought I was so plain... I did plays not to show off but because if I did that - I didn't realize it at the time - I would be somebody other than this person I didn't really approve of.

I always knew who I was, but everyone else wanted to me to be their 'idea' of the 'right' artist. At times, I even believed them.

I went through it in high school. It's like, 'Who am I? Am I good enough? Is my background good enough? I know I'm different, but do I have a voice?'

I spent so long trying to be other people, and it made me really deeply unhappy.

I'm not a cool girl. I wish I was.

I don't want to change; I just want to be like everyone else. I'm nothing special.

I don't want to feel like I have to change myself or my image.

Some people work hard to be something that they're not, and I don't work at all, I'm just me. And that can bother anybody I'm not working nearly as hard as the other guys, and they don't like it.

Being myself didn't work. Being someone else didn't work. Maybe I just wasn't meant to have friends.

People who are insecure about themselves will avoid social comparisons that are potentially threatening to their self-esteem