The True Believer

Welcome to my The True Believer book summary!

One-Sentence-Summary: Mass movements are interchangeable and a means allowing the individual “freedom from the arduous responsibility of realizing their ineffectual selves and shouldering the blame for the blemished product.” (p. 175)

I’m currently reading The True Believer by Eric Hoffer. Current page: 199

booboo real-time book rating: ★★★★★ (percentage of books with this rating: 34%)

The Appeal of Mass Movements

“..it is that people with a sense of fulfillment think it a good world and would like to conserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change.” (p. 7)

“Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extend a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.” (p. 16)

“The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.” (p. 16)

“We cannot be sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to die for it.” (p. 18) This is my definition of true love.

This blog will contain both my summary and review of the book The True Believe.

The Potential Converts

“It was not the irony of history that the undesired in the countries of Europe should have crossed an ocean to build a new world on this continent. Only they could do it.” (p. 30)

“Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.” (p. 36)

“Every established mass movement has its distant hope, its brand of dope to dull the impatience of the masses and reconcile them with their lot in life. Stalinism is as much an opium of the people as are the established religions.” (p. 37)

“In a society with an institution of slavery the troublemakers are the newly enslaved and the freed slaves. In the case of the latter it is the burden of freedom which is at the root of their discontent. /Freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual.” (p. 38)

“Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.” (p. 41)

“Equality without freedom creates a more stable social pattern than freedom without equality.” (p. 41)

“The less a person sees himself as an autonomous individual capable of shaping his own course and solely responsible for his station in life, the less likely is he to see his poverty as evidence of his own inferiority.” (p. 42)

“Almost all our contemporary movements showed in their early stages a hostile attitude toward the family, and did all they could to discredit and disrupt it. They did it by undermining the authority of the parents by facilitating divorce; by taking over the responsibility for feeding, educating and entertaining the children and by encouraging illegitimacy.” (p. 43)

“Hitler made full use of ‘the society ladies thirsting for adventure, sick of their empty lives, no longer getting a “kick” out of love affair.’ He was financed by the wives of some of the great industrialists long before their husbands had heard of him” (p. 65) We’ve all learned about Hitler since birth, whether we like it or not, and this fact is new!

“Self-surrender, which is..the source of a mass movement’s unity and vigor, is a sacrifice, an act of atonement, and clearly no atonement is called for unless there is a poignant sense of sin.” (p. 67)

As I read the book, you will find my in-progress The True Believer review and book summary notes below.

United Action and Self-Sacrifice

“..to damage the present is to maim the future.” (p. 93)

“For when we fail in attempting the possible, the blame is solely ours; but when we fail in attempting the impossible, we are justified in attributing it to the magnitude of the task. There is less risk in being discredited when trying the impossible than when trying the possible.” (p. 95)

“The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.” (p. 126)

“..the fabulous effects ascribed to propaganda have no greater foundation in fact than the fall of the walls of Jericho ascribed to the blast of Joshua’s trumpets. Were propaganda by itself one-tenth as potent as it is made out to be, the totalitarian regimes of Russia, Germany, Italy and Spain would have been mild affairs. They would have been blatant and brazen but without the ghastly brutality of secret police, concentration camps and mass extermination. / The truth seems to be that propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new; nor can it keep people persuaded once they have ceased to believe. It penetrates only into minds already open, and rather than instill opinion it articulates and justifies opinions already present in the minds of its recipient.” While I understand the author here, I think that most people don’t even have opinions on the vast majority of issues that exist and, more likely, their opinions are assigned by whoever they’re paying attention to.” (p. 129)

“‘A sharp sword must always stand behind propaganda if it is to be really effective.'” (p. 131)

“Professor K. S. Latourette, a very Christian historian, has to admit that ‘However incompatible the spirit of Jesus and armed force may be, and however unpleasant it may be to acknowledge the fact, as a matter of plain history the latter has often made it possible for the former to survive.'” (p. 133)

“It was the temporal word that made Christianity a world religion.” (p. 133)

“..where a mass movement can either persuade or coerce, it usually chooses the latter. Persuasion is clumsy and its results uncertain.” (p. 134)

“The more unworkable communism proves in Russia, and the more its leaders are compelled to compromise and adulterate the original creed, the more brazen and arrogant will be their attack on a non-believing world. The slavehodlers of the South became the more aggressive in spreading their way of life the more it became patent that their position was untenable in a modern world.” (p. 136) Reminds me of the Covid vaccine!

“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.” (p. 145)

“..the least self-reliant are the least likely to be discouraged by defeat. For they join others in a common understanding not so much to ensure the success of the cherished project as to avoid an individual shouldering of blame in case of failure. When the common understanding fails, they are still spared the one thing they fear most, namely, the showing up of their individual shortcomings.” (. p. 145/6)

“The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves.” (p. 146)

You are reading my book review and summary by Eric Hoffer. Be sure to check out my digital bookshelf for 100+ book summaries.

The Beginning of the End

“Where all learned men are clergymen, the church is unassailable. Where all learned men are bureaucrats or where education gives a man an acknowledged superior status, the prevailing order is likely to be free from movements of protest.” (p. 166)

“Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.” (p. 173) How movements begin is rarely, if ever, how they end.

Did you know I’m an author? I wrote four books on real estate investing, travel, and language learning.

New Words

ennui (noun) – a feeling of dissatisfaction from lack of occupation and excitement (incels are modern day ennui.)

magnanimity (adj) – generous or forgiving, especially towards a rival or someone less powerful. (The king forgave the adulterous man magnanimously for his actions)

sublime (adj) – something with a deep sense of beauty to inspire awe (the lake was sublime this evening without a sound nor ripple in the water)

proselytize (verb) – try to convert someone from one religious belief to another (his Sunday mornings were expressly comprised of him proselytizing to strangers walking by the sidewalk, paying no attention.)

solemnize (verb) – duly perform a ceremony, like a marriage (In the middle of happy hour, he publicly solemnized their new relationship)

Thanks for visiting and thanks to Eric Hoffer for writing The True Believer!

Date Started: Monday, April 7, 2025

Date Finished: Tuesday, April 22, 2025