There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that bold actions often mask deeper feelings of guilt or self-deception.
Eric Hoffer's quote reflects the idea that those who display confidence or self-righteousness may actually be driven by an underlying guilt. It serves as a commentary on human behavior, indicating that outward bravado can often be a façade for inner moral conflict, revealing the complexities of the human psyche.
In practice
During a speech on moral integrity, one might invoke this quote to highlight the importance of sincerity.
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.
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?
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.
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
If you don't know where you are currently standing, you're dead.
The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
Compassion refers to the arising in the heart of the desire to relieve the suffering of all beings.
I know the stars are my home. I learned about them, needed them for survival in terms of navigation. I know where I am when I look up at the sky. I know where I am when I look up at the Moon; it's not just some abstract romantic idea, it's something very real to me. See, I've expanded my home.
The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done. If powerful men and women could venter themselves in it, the whole world would be transformed by itself, in its natural rhythms. People would be content with their simple, everyday lives, in harmony, and free of desire. When there is no desire, all things are at peace.
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