Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family-what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated?
Interpretation
The quote reflects on our deep-seated beliefs and attachments to various aspects of identity and community as a way to cope with the notion of existential annihilation.
Eric Hoffer's quote delves into the human tendency to cling to faith in various entities such as family, nation, or religion as a means of creating meaning in a world where the self is ultimately fleeting. This faith serves as a psychological refuge against the fear of oblivion by allowing individuals to envision their ties and identities as part of something eternal and larger than themselves.
In practice
In a speech about community values, one might say, 'As Eric Hoffer expressed, our faith in humanity is what allows us to believe in a better future.'
Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about.
Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
Woodcutter. Cut my shadow from me. Free me from the torment of being without fruit. Why was I born among mirrors? Day goes round and round me. The night copies me in all its stars. I want to live without my reflection. And then let me dream that ants and thistledown are my leaves and my parrots.
'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say.
Only in solitude do we find ourselves; and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude.
Though thousand times a thousand in battle one may conquer, yet should one conquer just oneself, one is the greatest conqueror.
Does he think to scare me? Arya kissed him where his nose should be and plucked the grave worm from his eye to eat it, but it melted like a shadow in her hand. The yellow skull was melting too, and the kindliest old man that she had ever seen was smiling down on her. "No one has ever tried to eat my worm before," he said. "Are you hungry, child?" Yes, she thought, but not for food.
If you are serious about your religion, if you really wish to commit yourself to the spiritual quest, you must learn how to use psychochemicals. Drugs are the religion of the twenty-first_x000D_ century. Pursuing the religious life today without using psychedelic drugs is like studying astronomy with the naked eye because that's how they did it in the first century A.D., and besides_x000D_ telescopes are unnatural.
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