Eric Hoffer, son of a cabinet maker, went blind at age 7. His sight returned at age 15. Fearing he might lose it again, he became a voracious reader and a collector of library cards. He earned his keep as a migrant worker, a dock worker, and a writer. Can we all agree he became a better than average philosopher? A few of his sayings:
"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business."
"Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden."
"We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength."
"Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us."
"We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves."
"No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart."
"The ratio between supervisory and producing personnel is always highest where the intellectuals are in power."
"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."
"One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive — it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men."
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Go Eric. E.
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