Reflections on the Human Condition [Paperback]

Eric Hoffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2006

Eric Hoffer--one of America's most important thinkers and the author of The True Believer--lived for years as a Depression Era migratory worker. Self-taught, his appetite for knowledge--history, science, mankind--formed the basis of his insight to human nature. Reflections on the Human Condition is a collection of poignant aphorisms taken from his writings.

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Hopewell Publications (September 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933435143
• ISBN-13: 978-1933435145
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #578,402 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eric Hoffer Biography

Former migratory worker and longshoreman, Eric Hoffer burst on the scene in 1951 with his irreplaceable tome, The True Believer, and assured his place among the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. Nine books later, Hoffer remains a vital figure with his cogent insights to the nature of mass movements and the essence of humankind.

Of his early life, Hoffer has written: "I had no schooling. I was practically blind up to the age of fifteen. When my eyesight came back, I was seized with an enormous hunger for the printed word. I read indiscriminately everything within reach--English and German.

"When my father (a cabinetmaker) died, I realized that I would have to fend for myself. I knew several things: One, that I didn't want to work in a factory; two, that I couldn't stand being dependent on the good graces of a boss; three, that I was going to stay poor; four, that I had to get out of New York. Logic told me that California was the poor man's country."

Through ten years as a migratory worker and as a gold-miner around Nevada City, Hoffer labored hard but continued to read and write during the years of the Great Depression. The Okies and the Arkies were the "new pioneers," and Hoffer was one of them. He had library cards in a dozen towns along the railroad, and when he could afford it, he took a room near a library for concentrated thinking and writing.

In 1943, Hoffer chose the longshoreman's life and settled in California. Eventually, he worked three days each week and spent one day as "research professor" at the University of California in Berkeley. In 1964, he was the subject of twelve half-hour programs on national television. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983.

"America meant freedom and what is freedom? To Hoffer it is the capacity to feel like oneself. He felt like Eric Hoffer; sometimes like Eric Hoffer, working man. It could be said, I believe, that he as the first important American writer, working class born, who remained working class-in his habits, associations, environment. I cannot think of another. Therefore, he was a national resource. The only one of its kind in the nation's possession." - Eric Sevareid, from his dedication speech to Eric Hoffer, San Francisco, CA, September 17, 1985

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MADE IN USA: From Longshoremen to Social Thinker, April 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Reflections on the Human Condition. (Paperback)

Eric Hoffer is, quite simply, a rare find. Only in America could a longshoreman become one of the most profound of contemporary social Philosophers; this is true of Hoffer. In very much the spirit of an Albert Einstein,who labored anonymously and in thankless tedium as a patent clerk for a great many years before revealing his Theory of Relativity, Hoffer bursts forth from the ranks of longshoremen with a profound understanding of the nature of the human condition. Reflections on the Human Condition is one of my favorite reads; I recommend this particular work, for, in it, Hoffer, presents profound observations in the context of a pithy, easily-assimilated prose. It is a great book to pick up from time to time and simply muse over. While I do not expect that every reader will concur, I am confident that many will appreciate Reflections on the Human Condition and leave it with a greater understanding of the "human condition."

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The unfinished creature creating world and self, March 31, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Reflections on the Human Condition (Hardcover)

This work is a profound meditation on the human condition. Hoffer focuses on the incompleteness of Man, the imperfection, the prolonged youthfulness that enable Mankind to create self and world. He writes, " We find him instead the only lighthearted being in a deadly serious universe. All around him were living creatures superbly equipped, and driven by grim purposefulness. He alone, with childish carelessness, tinkered and played, and exerted himself more in the pursuit of superfluities than of necessities. Yet the tinkering and playing, and the fascination with the nonessential , were a chief source of the inventiveness which enabled man to prevail over better- equipped and more purposeful animals."

Hoffer's aphoristic style enables him to write memorable sentence after sentence. His perceptiveness, intelligence, human decency and common sense pervade this volume.

Here a few samples of the wise words in this work.

"Belief passes, but to never have believed never passes."

"Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to imitate that image, view with it, and strive to overcome it."

"Actually, there is no alienation that a little power will not cure."

"Pascal feared that if men knew what each other thought of the other there would be no friends in the world."

"Every passionate search is in some degree a search for something lost."

"It is the individual alone who is timeless."
A wonderful book.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very nice quotes, February 19, 2007

By 

Dmitriy Golubkov (Russia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reflections on the Human Condition (Paperback)

Some of the quotes, contained in this book, are close to Genius. I think that works of Eric Hoffer will be of great interest not only for us but also for future generations.