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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

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
Sarcastic
Usually
Curmudgeon
Please
Conformist
Liberty
Imitating
Decision
Imitate
Freedom
Sarcasm
Free
Imitation
People
Conformity

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The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.
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It is the acquisition of skills in particular, irrespective of their utility, that is potent in making life meaningful. Since man has no inborn skills, the survival of the species has depended on the ability to acquire and perfect skills. Hence the mastery of skills is a uniquely human activity and yields deep satisfaction.
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When you automate an industry you modernize it when you automate a life you primitivize it.
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Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
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We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.
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We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs subordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.
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The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
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First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket.
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There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
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We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact
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Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
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To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. It not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give their allegiance to him who offers them a grievance.
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There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
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Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.
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The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.
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There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
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A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.
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In human affairs every solution serves only to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. There are no final solutions.
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If anybody asks me what I have accomplished, I will say all I have accomplished is that I have written a few good sentences.
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We usually see only the things we are looking for- so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
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