With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves. – Eric Hoffer
To know a persons religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance. – Eric Hoffer
When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion. – Eric Hoffer
The necessary has never been mans top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, mans greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities. – Eric Hoffer
But on the first day came veiled spirits from all hours into his soul… a soft intoxication, which the atmosphere of nature, like that of a wine-store, communicated to him, spread itself, like an enchanted solitude around his soul. – Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Hesperus, or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography,