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Eric Hoffer

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Eric Hoffer

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American philosopher

Person · Open Library

Born
25 July 1898
Died
21 May 1983
Works
17

Top works

  • The Ordeal of Change
  • The True Believer:Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
  • Before the Sabbath
  • First things, last things
  • The temper of our time

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
19
Total plays
39

<a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Eric+Hoffer">Read more on Last.fm</a>

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Quotes

  • My writing is done in railroad yards while waiting for a freight, in the fields while waiting for a truck, and at noon after lunch. Towns are too distracting.
  • It's disconcerting to realize that businessmen, generals, soldiers, men of action are less corrupted by power than intellectuals... You take a conventional man of action, and he's satisfied if you obey. But not the intellectual. He doesn't want you just to obey. He wants you to get down on your knees and praise the one who makes you love what you hate and hate what you love. In other words, whenever the intellectuals are in power, there's soul-raping going on.
  • Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.
  • It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.
  • It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment.
  • Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas.

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Key facts

Born
( 1902-07-25 ) July 25, 1902, New York City, U.S.
Died
May 21, 1983 (1983-05-21) (aged 80), San Francisco, California, U.S.
Occupation
Author, longshoreman
Genre
Philosophy , social criticism
Notable awards
Presidential Medal of Freedom , 1983

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Image
Eric Hoffer in LBJ Oval Office.jpg
Show 3 more facts
date of birth
1902-07-25
date of death
1983-05-21
Commons category
Eric Hoffer
Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

~13 min read

Article

Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1902 – May 21, 1983) was an American philosopher and social critic. A conservative moderate with an atypical working-class background, Hoffer wrote ten books over his career and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer (1951), was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that The Ordeal of Change (1963) was his finest work. The Eric Hoffer Book Award is an international literary prize established in his honor. The University of California, Berkeley awards an annual literary prize named jointly for Hoffer.

Early life

Gallery (2)

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