It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.
Interpretation
The inability to appreciate the living signifies a decline in one's spirit and vitality.
Eric Hoffer's quote suggests that when we find ourselves unable to express admiration or appreciation for the vitality of those around us, it reflects a deeper issue within ourselves. This 'creeping inner death' indicates a stagnation of the spirit, where negativity or apathy takes root, preventing us from recognizing the beauty and life that exists in the world and within others.
In practice
During a motivational speech about embracing life and positivity.
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.
Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears.
[I]t seems to me as clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime.
Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.
Look. This is your world! You can't not look. There is no other world. This is your world; it is your feast. You inherited this; you inherited these eyeballs; you inherited this world of color. Look at the greatness of the whole thing. Look! Don't hesitate - look! Open your eyes. Don't blink, and look, look - look further.
A Baby Sermon- The lighting and thunder, they go and they come: But the stars and the stillness are always at home
An economic system which can only expand or expire must be false to all that is human.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.