A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self. (Eric Hoffer)

A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

Eric Hoffer

Related topics

doctrine envy pettiness real self wall words

Related quotes

To know is not too demanding: it merely requires memory and time. But to understand is quite a different matter: it requires intellectual ability and training, a self conscious awareness of what one is doing, experience in techniques of analysis and synthesis, and above all, perspective.

Carroll Quigley

We got a real clear picture of what they all value. Every Republican's voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they're proposing. Romney wants to let the - he said in the first hundred days he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, 'unchain Wall Street.'

Joe Biden

In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill, For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still While words of learned length and thundering sound Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew.

Oliver Goldsmith

A ghost, Larry, is someone who hasn't made it -- in other words, who died, and they don't know they're dead. So they keep walking around and thinking that you're inhabiting their -- let's say, their domain. So they're aggravated with you.

Sylvia Browne

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

George Orwell