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The Ordeal of Change QUOTES

The Ordeal of Change QUOTES

1 " Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

2 " The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

3 " Most often in history it was the conquerors who learned willingly from the conquered. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

4 " It has been often said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the fruits of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

5 " Contrary to what one would expect, it is easier for the advanced to imitate the backward than the other way around. The backward and the weak see in imitation an act of submission and a proof of their inadequacy. They must rid themselves of their sense of inferiority, must demonstrate their prowess, before they will open their minds and hearts to all that the world can teach them. Most often in history it was the conquerors who learned willingly from the conquered. The backward, says de Tocqueville, “will go forth in arms to gain knowledge but will not receive it when it comes to them.” Thus the grotesque truculence, posturing, conceit, brazenness, and defiance which usually assail our senses whenever a backward country sets out to modernize itself in a hurry stem partly from the desperate need of the weak for an illusion of strength and superiority if they are to imitate rapidly and easily. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

6 " The noble carpenter from Galilee could make no headway when he challenged the pretension of the solemn scholars, hair-splitting lawyers, and arrogant pedants, and raised his voice in defense of the poor in spirit. He was ostracized and anathematized, and his teachings found a following chiefly among non-Jews. Yet the teachings of Jesus fared no better than the teachings of the prophets when they came wholly into the keeping of dominant intellectuals. They were made into a vehicle for the maintenance and aggrandizement of a vast hierarchy of clerks, while the poor in spirit, instead of inheriting the earth, were left to sink into serfdom and superstitious darkness. In the sixteenth century, we see the same pattern again. When Luther first defied the Pope and his councils he spoke feelingly of “the poor, simple, common folk.” Later, when allied with the German princelings, he lashed out against the rebellious masses with unmatched ferocity: “Let there be no half-measures! Cut their throats! Transfix them! Leave no stone unturned! To kill a rebel is to destroy a mad dog.” He assured his aristocratic patrons that “a prince can enter heaven by the shedding of blood more certainly than others by means of prayer. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

7 " Seen as a process of imitation, it becomes understandable why the Westernization of a backward country so often breeds a violent antagonism toward the West. People who become like us do not necessarily love us. The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate—to surpass it, leave it behind, or, better still, eliminate it completely. Now and then in history the last was done first: the imitators began by destroying the model and then proceeded to imitate it. We are apparently most at ease when we imitate a defeated or dead model. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

8 " And what of the masses in this intellectual’s paradise? They have found in the intellectual the most formidable taskmaster in history. No other regime has treated the masses so callously as raw material, to be experimented on and manipulated at will; and never before have so many lives been wasted so recklessly in war and in peace. On top of all this, the Communist intelligentsia has been using force in a wholly novel manner. The traditional master uses force to exact obedience and lets it go at that. Not so the intellectual. Because of his professed faith in the power of words and the irresistibility of the truths which supposedly shape his course, he cannot be satisfied with mere obedience. He tries to obtain by force a response that is usually obtained by the most perfect persuasion, and he uses Terror as a fearful instrument to extract faith and fervor from crushed souls. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

9 " One cannot escape the impression that the intellectual’s most fundamental incompatibility is with the masses. He has managed to thrive in social orders dominated by kings, nobles, priests, and merchants, but not in societies suffused with the tastes and values of the masses. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

10 " The rabid extremist in present-day Asia is usually a man of some education who has a horror of manual labor and who develops a mortal hatred for a social order that denies him a position of command. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

11 " It is this fact which gives America its utter newness. All civilizations we know of were shaped by exclusive minorities of kings, nobles, priests, and the equivalents of the intellectual. It was they who formulated the ideals, aspirations, and values, and it was they who set the tone. America is the only instance of a civilization shaped and colored by the tastes and values of common folk. No elite of whatever nature can feel truly at home in America. This is true not only of the aristocrat proper, but also of the intellectual, the military leader, the business tycoon, and even the labor leader. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change

12 " The Communist Manifesto condemned the bourgeoisie not only for pauperizing, dehumanizing, and enslaving the toiling masses, but also for robbing the intellectual of his elevated status. “The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe.” Though the movement was initiated by intellectuals and powered by their talents and hungers, it yet held up the proletariat as the chosen people—the only carrier of the revolutionary idea, and the chief beneficiary of the revolution to come. The intellectuals, particularly those who had “raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole,” were to act as guides—as a composite Moses—during the long wanderings in the desert. Like Moses, the intellectuals would have no more to do once the promised land was in sight. “The role of the intelligentsia,” said Lenin, “is to make special leaders from among the intelligentsia unnecessary. "

― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change