This collection of aphorisms and philosophical comment represents Eric Hoffer at his best. It offers stunning insights that strike home with startling frequency, often most uncomfortably; it has a fine unity, a well-defined theme. That some of the statements invite argument and questioning is inevitable and stimulating. Here is a book of the "wry epigram and the icy aphorism" which made his earlier books so appealing and gained for him a wide audience.--Publisher description.

This book is a collection of 17 independent, opinionated and provocative essays on the various conceptual experiences of being human. Topics include: Ego States, Strokes and Transactions, Our Species, Duality Rules OK, Realities, Languages and Theories, Five Personality Types, Compound Personality Types, Personality Types in Relationships, The Enemies of Love, Men and Women, Morality, The Quest for Happiness, The Issue of Astrology, Life Stages, Zeitgeist, and The Life and Death of God. Most serious books are thought marathons; this serious book is a collection of thought sprints - perfect mind-bending for between stops on bus or train. ,

Originally published in 1961. Arthur O. Lovejoy, beginning with his book The Great Chain of Being, helped usher in the discipline of the History of Ideas in America. In Reflections on Human Nature, Lovejoy devotes particular attention to influential figures such as Hobbes, Locke, Bishop Butler, and Mandeville, tracing developments and changes in the concept of human nature through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He also discusses the theory of human nature held by the founders of the American Constitution, giving special attention to James Madison and the "Federalist Papers."