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The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.

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
Evil
Formidable
Persons
Doubts
Person
Suspicious
Every
Suspicion
Mind
Believes
Believe
Atheism
Doubt
Ineradicable
Literature
Lurking

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A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.
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Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
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Anger is a prelude to courage.
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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.
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No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion it is an evil government.
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The ruthlessness born of self-seeking is ineffectual compared with the ruthlessness sustained by dedication to a holy cause. God wishes, said Calvin, that one should put aside all humanity when it is a question of striving for His glory.
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To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.
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When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong it easily becomes a fashion.
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Facts are counterrevolutionary.
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There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves.
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There is a time when the word eventually has the soothing effect of a promise, and a time when the word evokes in us bitterness and scorn.
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The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
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Only the individual who has come to terms with his self can have a dispassionate attitude toward the world.
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The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
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...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.
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We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
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The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.
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Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
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Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
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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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