Some quotes from "True Believer" by Eric Hoffer

One of the most thought-provoking books I have read yet, and definitely a must-read for anyone hell-bent on world domination. But seriously, the book is about "mass movements" and how regular people are often manipulated into joining or believing in a cause. While there are some parts of Hoffer's thesis that I do not believe are absolute, the connections he draws from past to present (or Cold-War era) resonate especialy now.

The selected quotes are just an inkling of the overall profundity of this work.
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The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his holy cause.

We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.

There is a hope that acts as an explosive and a hope that disciplines and infuses patience

Equality without freedom creates a more stable social pattern than freedom without equality.

The ideal of self-advancement which the civilizing west offers to backward populations brings with it the plague of individual frustration

It is futile to judge the viability of a new movement by the truth of its doctrine and the feasibility of its promises. What has to be judged is its corporate organization for quick and total absorption of the frustrated

from Bergson - Strength of faith manifests itself noy in moving mountains but in not seeing mountains to move

(The True Believer's) sense of security is derived from his passionate attachment and not from the excellence of his cause

It is easier for a fanatic communist to be converted to fascism, chauvinism or catholicism than to become a sober liberal

We do not usually look for allies when we love. Indeed, we often look on those who love with us as rivals and tresspassers. But we always look for allies when we hate.

Self contempt produces in a man "the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults

Thus, though hatred is a convenient instrument for mobilizing a community for defense, it does not, in the long run, come cheap. We pay for it by losing all or many of the values we have set out to defend.

There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vagie stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment

The gifted propagandist brings to boil ideas and passions already simmering in the minds of his hearers

Indeed it seems that frustration stems chiefly from an inability to act, and that the most poignantly frustrated are those whose talents and temperment equip them ideally for a life of action but are condemned by circumstances to rust away in idleness.

The freedom the masses crave is not freedom of self expression and self realization, but freedom from the intolerable burden of an autonomous existence