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It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.

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
Neighbor
Easier
Humanity
Whole
Love
Pregnancy
Meaningful

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This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter
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Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
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To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
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...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.
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The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
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Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
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Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder.
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The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
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You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.
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A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.
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A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.
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Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
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It is apparently vital that we should be in the dark about ourselves not to be clear about our intentions, fears, and hopes. There is a stubborn effort in us to set up a compact screen between consciousness and the self.
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EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.
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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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There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
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We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.
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Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.
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A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.
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Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
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