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Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.

Eric Hoffer

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Eric Hoffer
Age: 84 †
Born: 1898
Born: July 25
Died: 1983
Died: May 21
Philosopher
Psychologist
Writer
New York City
New York
Greatest
Pretense
Beauty
Emptiness
Evil
Hide
Thing
Math
Something
Hardest
Ugly
Built
Pretenses
Trust
Pretension

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Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
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We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.
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A just society must strive with all its might to right wrongs even if righting wrongs is a highly perilous undertaking. But if it is to survive, a just society must be strong and resolute enough to deal swiftly and relentlessly with those who would mistake its good will for weakness.
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When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.
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The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.
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We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for.
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Communists are frustrated capitalists.
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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.
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It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.
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The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.
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The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
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We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true they ruin our dreams.
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When cowardice becomes a fashion its adherents are without number, and it masquerades as forbearance, reasonableness and whatnot.
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What merit there is in my thinking is derived from two peculiarities: (1) My inability to be familiar with anything. I simply can't take things for granted. (2) My endless patience. I assume that the only way to find an answer is to hang on long enough and keep groping.
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A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
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Actual creativeness is a matter of moments. One has to piece together the minute grains to make a lump. And it is so easy to miss the momentary flashes, it is like sluicing in placer mining. He who lets the flakes float by has nothing to show for his trouble.
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To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.
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Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.
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Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.
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How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.
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