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Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.

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
Cause
Causes
Literature
Faith
Considerable
History
Substitute
Lost
Substitutes
Extent
Holy

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Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.
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For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. 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 and potentialities.
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The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.
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For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future but an excuse can last for life.
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It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
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There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
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There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
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Unpredictability, too, can become monotonous.
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It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power - power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors they want to retaliate.
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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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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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Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.
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A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life
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Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited.
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Action is basically a reaction against loss of balance - a flailing of the arms to to regain one's balance. To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium.
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Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence.
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That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them.
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The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us.
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Sensuality reconciles us with the human race. The misanthropy of the old is due in large part to the fading of the magic glow of desire.
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