The True Believer (1951) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters/People edit see section history

• Kemal Ataturk: Add a description of this character.
• Angelica Balabanoff
• Nikolai Bukharin
• Jacob Burckhardt
• Jesus Christ
• Winston Churchill
• Oliver Cromwell
• Madame de Staël
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Gandhi
• Hermann Goering
• J. B. S. Haldane
• Heraclitus
• Adolf Hitler
• Chiang Kai-shek
• Sergey Kirov
• Vladimir Lenin
• Abraham Lincoln
• Martin Luther
• Karl Marx
• Meiji
• Mo-Tzu
• Napoleon
• Nehru
• José Ortega y Gasset
• Blaise Pascal
• Peter The Great
• Karl Radek
• Ernest Renan
• Maximilien de Robespierre
• Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Josef Stalin
• Alexis de Tocqueville
• Leon Trotsky

Quotes edit see section history

• “Man would fain be great and sees that he is little; would fain be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of the love and esteem of men, and sees that his faults merit only their aversion and contempt. The embarrassment wherein he finds himself produces in him the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults.”

  Pascal

• “And slime had they for mortar.”

  Genesis II

• “The petit bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communist always will.”

  Adolf Hitler

• “Stalinism is as much an opium of the people as are the established religions.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.

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• Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.

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• The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.

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• It is not actual suffering but the taste of better things which excites people to revolt.

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• The unemployed are more likely to follow the peddlers of hope than the handers-out of relief.

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• For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power. They must also have an extravagant conception of the prospects and potentialities of the future. Finally, they must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking. Experience is a handicap.

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• Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority. Equality without freedom creates a more stable social pattern than freedom without equality.

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• The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like giving a hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

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• They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society. The frustrated, oppressed by their shortcomings, blame their failure on existing restraints. Actually their innermost desire is for an end to the “free for all.” They want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society.

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• Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves. 9 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.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• China
• Egypt
• England
• France
• India
• Italy
• Japan
• Middle East
• Palestine
• Russia
• Soviet Union
• Spain
• Turkey
• United States of America

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Bolshevik: Describe this term.
• British Raj
• Catholicism
• Communism
• Marxism
• National Socialism
• Shintoism

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Eric Hoffer (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• California Book Award (1951: Nonfiction, Gold)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 303.484

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Nonfiction › Philosophy › Political
• Books › Nonfiction › Social Sciences › Sociology
• Books › Nonfiction › Politics

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history