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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
Literature
Faith
Considerable
History
Substitute
Lost
Substitutes
Extent
Holy
Cause
Causes

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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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Intolerance is the ''Do Not Touch'' sign on something that cannot bear touching. We do not mind having our hair ruffled, but we will not tolerate any familiarity with the toupee which covers our baldness.
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To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats- we know it not.
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It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice.
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A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
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Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
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The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.
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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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It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
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Love-making is radical, while marriage is conservative.
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The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
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You cannot gauge the intelligence of an American by talking with him you must work with him. The American polishes and refines his way of doing things-even the most commonplace-the way the French of the 17th century polished their maxims.
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The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse.
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Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
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The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.
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The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.
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The necessary has never been man's top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, man's greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities.
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Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.
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An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity--the endless flow of life and death--than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous.
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