It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.
Interpretation
Opposite experiences and challenges shape our character and creativity.
The quote by Eric Hoffer suggests that the contrasting forces and experiences in our lives are necessary for personal growth and expression. By encountering and embracing these opposing elements, our souls are metaphorically stretched, leading to deeper understanding and creativity, much like how tension in a musical instrument produces sound. It emphasizes the idea that true artistry and emotional resonance arise from the complexities of life.
In practice
This quote could be used during a motivational speech to inspire artists facing challenges.
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.
You will have to go deep into man. From where comes this violence? From where comes this exploitation? From where come all these ego-trips? From where? They all come from unconsciousness. Man lives asleep, man lives mechanically. That mechanism has to be broken, man has to be re-done. That is the religious revolution that has not been tried.
This melancholy London - I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.
Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?
Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature.
Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
But if you seek forgiveness, doesn't that automatically mean you cannot be a monster? By definition, doesn't that desperation make you human again?
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.