Remember Eric Hoffer?

When I was in college, a number of friends and I stumbled across Eric Hoffer's books in the bookstore where we worked. We read them voraciously and then his thought faded into the mass of other things we were reading and hearing. Today I ran across an interesting line of his, although I had to look up the reference to see that he had written it.

“Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.”

 

Hoffer wrote and published up until the end. I have only read his earlier works, True Believer, Ordeal of Change and The Temper of Our Time. He died in 1983, shortly after being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan. 

 

I find it interesting that Reagan should have honored Hoffer in this way. It just goes to show that two people can read the same book and hear something quite different.

But I suppose one only has to look at the history of most religions to see that.