From selections of the Notebooks of Eric Hoffer (known as the longshoreman philosopher of San Francisco) are published in Harper's Magazine for July 2005.

THE DESIRE FOR PRAISE

This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's effort is without insight. Our most persistent and spectacular efforts are concerned not with the preservation of what we are but with the building up of an imaginary conception of ourselves in the opinions of others. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter. 1952

LITTLE TO SAY

If writing gives us satisfaction, we are likely to end up writing for definite periods each day even when we have little to say. The hanging on to an empty form is almost as natural since it is the form only that we can control and stage. There is, of course, also the unconscious assumption that once you stage the form, the content will come to nest in of itself. All ritual is perhaps based on this assumption: you stage the gesture and words that go with fervor and faith and you assume that the latter will somehow materialize. 1952

FACT AND OPINION

We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion. 1955