I read this book (and most of his others) when originally published. No question but THIS IS HIS GREAT WORK. As his work went on, his lack of understanding of institutions (public and private) began to show his failure to fully grasp the implications. When he left what he knew so well, the relations of the workers, he moved so far that his later writing suffers from asute commentary based on incorrect facts and understanding, which require careful reading. But THIS BOOK should be REQUIRED READING -- PERHAPS MOST FOR DUBYA AND HIS CREW, WHO TOTALLY LACK UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONCEPT.

Awsome book!
Also read The Illuminati Manifesto!!!

Eric Hoffer is a remarkable individual, a self-educated philosopher and original thinker. He made an incredible impact years ago with his first book, The True Believer, which became a cult classic. A generation later, it has been (temporarily) forgotten, along with his second book, which never received the recognition it deserved. The Ordeal of Change relates how human beings deal with change in a series of essays that are both easy to relate to, meaningful to academics and lay people alike, and reflective of scholarship and common-sense. Why are we both attracted to and afraid of change? Hoffer's very readable book answers these questions in understandable and well-grounded terms. I have recommended this book to a dozen executives who have had to deal with resistance to change in their organizations, and somehow never came across this remarkable work by a San Francisco longshoreman who is a rival as a thinker to the best of more recognized intellectuals. Surprise someone whose mind you admire and wish to challenge with this as a gift, and do yourself a favor, proving that you can compete in the world of ideas. I didn't get my copy back from the last person I loaned it to, and can't remember who it was, so I have to buy a second copy of one of my all time favorites.

About fifteen years ago I took a copy of this book to work with me for a lunchtime read.
I still keep it here and I'm still absorbing it.

Hoffer profoundly illuminates the failings, foibles, and foolishness of human affairs, sometimes with dark wit and sometimes with pyrotechnics.

In it I always find aphorisms to describe any "workplace situation", and I use them liberally in letters, presentations, discussions and even responses to graffiti. Hoffer's insights have turned around many a situation for me.

The book gave me tremendous personal growth and a career boost as well.

Whether you're an evil HR director, or like myself just a workingman trying to navigate the waters of mid-life, this book will help you.

old jim hardy

Eric Hoffer penned this book of aphorisms shortly after "The True Believer," undoubtably his masterpiece study on the psychology of mass movements and those who partake in them. This collection provides a similar challenge to the reader, as it takes poignant stabs into the human mind with Hoffer's trademark detachment.

At many points in reading this book, I had to stop and think about what one sentence had said, how others reflected in its mirror; indeed how I reflected in its mirror. It would take hours or even days before I could crack the book again and move on to the next selection. Many of the aphorisms remain ingrained in my head, and I often browse back through the book to reflect on what is there.

If you enjoyed "The True Believer," I believe you will duly enjoy "The Passionate State of Mind." If you are a lover of psychology/sociology, welcome to one of the classic books(and writers) of the 20th century. If you want a book that allows for intense reflection and self-examination, far more so than the hordes of so-called "self-help" books now available, this book can provide that and more. A great book by an all too forgotten penman.

Eric Hoffer is a thoughtful author, in the truest sense of the word. In his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Hoffer makes over two hundred deep and powerful statements to ponder and adjust to. I usually find that I read two or three of his aphorisms, put the book down, and spend several days evaluating my life with them. These "truisms" cover what motivates us to do the things we do, how we respond to others, and how to live life without catching on the usual snags. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a breath of fresh air in their thought life.

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."

I was given this book by my new Stepfather at age 19 in 1967. He had observed my flirtation, if not the beginning of a slide, with radical social activism. Mr Hoffer helped me to see that my attractions to these movements, which have largely been abandoned by even their most ardent proponents, were largely projections of unresolved and indeed unfaced inner coflicts.

Thanks Dad. Thanks Mr Hoffer. You saved me and those around me a lot of grief.

I think this simple book would go a long way toward social sanity if it were read by High School students.

I was fortunate enough to hear Eric Hoffer speak in the 1960's,
I was just a little kid but his clarity and personal power made such an impression I still remember him to this day.

After 9/11 I started seeing reviews of this book crop up again and I bought it and read it. I am glad I did.

In a straightforward style he talks about the minds of fanatics of any stripe and looks for the common elements that you will find in the followers of Jim Jones or Osama Bin Laden. He makes a compelling case that people who feel that their own lives are pointless and they cannot make a difference in the world ally themselves with huge, great causes and subsume their own selves into the great cause.

He makes concrete lists of characteristics that you will recognize in people you meet every day, encounter in the letters-to-the editor columns of your newspaper as well as those that have closed themselves off in a cult or mass movement.

I found the book said things that several months after reading it I still think of often. I highely suggest that anyone read it.

"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."--Eric Hoffer, The true Believer

None of the terrorists of September 11 were destitute. Some even had wives and children. Nevertheless, they committed suicide for their cause. Anyone wanting to understand this horrible irony would do well to read Eric Hoffer's 1951 classic, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) was a self-educated US author and philosopher who was a migratory worker and longshoreman until 1967. He achieved immediate acclaim with his first book, The true Believer.

According to Hoffer, the early converts to any mass movement come from the ranks of the "frustrated," that is, "people who..feel that their lives are spoiled or wasted." The true believers' "Faith in [their] holy cause is to a considerable extent a subsitute for [their] lost faith in [themselves]." He says that we are prone to throw ourselves into a mass movement to "supplant and efface the self we want to forget." He then adds, "We cannot be sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to die for it."

Hoffer offers a general insight about mass movements, which seems to prophetically explain why there is currently widespread anti-Western sentiment within Islamic countries:

"The discontent generated in backward countries by their contact with Western civilization is not primarily resentment against exploitation by domineering foriegners. It is rather the result of a crumbling or weakening of tribal solidarity and communal life.

"The ideal of self-advancement which the civilizing West offers to the backward populations brings with it the plague of individual frustration. All the advantages brought by the West are ineffectual substitutes for the sheltering and soothing anonymity of a communal existence. Even when the Westernized native attains personal success--becomes rich, or masters a respected profession--he is not happy."

Further along, Hoffer mentions those who "want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society."

Why should individualism, freedom, and self-advancement be hated? Again, I can do no better than quote Hoffer:

"Freedom aggravates as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably muliplies failure and frustration...Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden...We join mass movements to escape individual responsibility...."

In light of the above quotes, there is little wonder that the terrorists chose to destroy the Twin Towers. These were architectural symboles of individualism and self-advancement.

But Hoffer's book does more than give us insight into the psychology of the fanatic. It causes us to soberly contemplate ourselves. For who has not experienced failure, frustration, and a sense of futility at one time or another? The true Believer is one of those few books I consider to contain ideas approximating to true "wisdom."

This little book is a remarkable achievement. Written by Eric Hoffer who, at the time, was a dock worker with no formal education, it is one of the best treatments of the nature and effects of ideological fanaticism ever produced. The presentation, in short chapters - each demanding to be thought about carefully - is a synthesis of years of careful reading and research on Hoffer's part. It is a book that can be read and reread with each new reading shedding new insight on political and social issues of our time.

That Hoffer went on to become something of an apologist for reactionary government response to many of the protest movements during the sixties - including the civil rights movement which he characterized as a 'racket' - should not blind anyone to the value of his first book. Its insights are still fresh and its wisdom is timeless. He, alas, didn't always take his own lessons to heart.