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Eric Hoffer Quotes about Responsibility

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To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief from the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for

To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief from the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.

Eric Hoffer
Responsibility, Frustrated, Independence
ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. We join a mass movement to escape from individual responsibility, or, in the words of an ardent young Nazi, to be free from freedom. It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?

Eric Hoffer
Responsibility, Men, Order
"The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements". Book by Eric Hoffer. Section 26, 1951.

Modern man is weighed down more by the burden of responsibility than by the burden of sin. We think him more a savior who shoulders our responsibilities than him who shoulders our sins. If instead of making decisions we have but to obey and do our duty, we feel it as a sort of salvation.

Eric Hoffer
Responsibility, Men, Thinking
"The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms". Book by Eric Hoffer. Section 84, 1955.

Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, "to be free from freedom."

Eric Hoffer
Responsibility, Men, Self
Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.

Eric Hoffer
Failure, Responsibility, Weak
Eric Hoffer (1963). “The Ordeal of Change”

The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me.

Eric Hoffer
Ambition, Responsibility, Daily Tasks
"Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook" by Tom Bethell in Harper's Magazine, July 2005.

To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.

Eric Hoffer
Responsibility, Frustrated, Attractive
ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.

Eric Hoffer
Responsibility, Insecure, Self
ERIC HOFFER (1963). “THE TRUE BELIEVER”

There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses.

Eric Hoffer
Powerful, Responsibility, Hands
Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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