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1. “The true believer is everywhere on the march…and whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature.” 
2. "When hopes are dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them."
3. “A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation...Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves.”
I’ve thought about, fought against, and written a lot on radicalization, applying Eric Hoffer’s theory on mass movements to Radical Islam. My article “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements” lays out some of this. usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryR…
Hoffer covers a lot of terrain in his analysis. Two parts apply most strongly to modern day radicalism: his discussion of why mass movements have appeal and his analysis of the traits most likely to produce converts to a mass movement.
Hoffer proposes it is neither the abject poor, nor the sated middle class, nor the wealthy who are most likely attracted to mass movements. Instead, it is the newly poor, or those who feel they have lost status, prestige, or were promised such things, who are most susceptible.
