"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists"
About this Quote
The phrasing turns “learned” from compliment to caution. It suggests a class of people rewarded for mastering a stable set of rules, then shocked when the rules stop paying rent. Hoffer is writing with mid-20th-century upheaval in the background: world wars, mass industry, ideological churn, labor dislocation. In that context, “drastic change” isn’t motivational-poster turbulence; it’s the kind of shift that collapses whole ways of life and makes yesterday’s competence feel like a costume.
The subtext is democratic and a little ruthless. Learning, for Hoffer, is less about intelligence than posture: adaptability as moral discipline. It also smuggles in a critique of institutions that produce “the learned” as finished products, neatly certified, then sent into a world whose operating system updates overnight. The point isn’t that knowledge is worthless; it’s that knowledge without the habit of unlearning becomes a liability. In an era that keeps rewriting itself, the future doesn’t belong to the smartest person in the room, but to the one who keeps moving chairs.
Quote Details
| Topic | Embrace Change |
|---|---|
| Source | Evidence: In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. (Section 32 (chapter/section numbering varies by edition); print page not verified). Multiple independent quotation reference sites attribute this wording to Eric Hoffer’s own book Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), specifically “Section 32.” For bibliographic confirmation of the 1973 first edition, WorldCat lists the book as a 1973 Harper & Row (New York) first edition and notes that “Portions appeared in the September 24, 1972, issue of Family Weekly.” That WorldCat note suggests an earlier periodical appearance of some material, but I did not find a primary-source scan of that 1972 Family Weekly issue that lets me confirm whether this specific sentence appears there. I also could not verify the exact print page number from the book within the tool-accessible preview; hence the page field is given as Section 32 rather than a page number. Other candidates (1) Wisdom for the Soul (Larry Chang, 2006) compilation98.3% ... In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future . The learned usually find themselves equip... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Hoffer, Eric. (2026, February 11). In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-a-time-of-drastic-change-it-is-the-learners-23516/
Chicago Style
Hoffer, Eric. "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." FixQuotes. February 11, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-a-time-of-drastic-change-it-is-the-learners-23516/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." FixQuotes, 11 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-a-time-of-drastic-change-it-is-the-learners-23516/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
