Eric Hoffer, The True Believer ( Quotes

A collection of quotes by Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (.

Eric Hoffer was an American social philosopher and writer, best known for his seminal work titled "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements". Born in 1902, Hoffer worked as a longshoreman for most of his life and did not have any formal education. However, his independent thinking and astute observations allowed him to write extensively on topics like fanaticism, mass psychology, and the dynamics of social movements. "The True Believer" delves into the psychology behind individuals who become fiercely dedicated to a cause or ideology, and remains a profound analysis of human behavior and the power of collective movements.

There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society's ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom. In most all the descriptions of the periods preceding the rise of mass movements there is reference to vast ennui; and in their earliest stages mass movements are more likely to find sympathizers and support among the bored than among the exploited and oppressed. To a deliberate fomenter of mass upheavals, the report that people are bored stiff should be at least as encouraging as that they are suffering from intolerable economic or political abuses.When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. The consciousness of a barren, meaningless existence is the main fountainhead of boredom. People who are not conscious of their individual separatedness, as is the case with those who are members or a compact tribe, church, party, etcetera, are not accessible to boredom. The differentiated individual is free of boredom only when he is engaged either in creative work or some absorbing occupation or when he is wholly engrossed in the struggle for existence. Pleasure-chasing and dissipation are ineffective palliatives. Where people live autonomous lives and are not badly off, yet are without abilities or opportunities for creative work or useful action, there is no telling to what desperate and fantastic shifts they might resort in order to give meaning and purpose to their lives.

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (

Boredom