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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.

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
Thing
Confusion
Much
Lack
Things
Seem
Greater
Less
Seems
Nothing
Dissatisfied
Many
Frustration

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A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.
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It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
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Language was invented to ask questions.
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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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When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
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Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance.
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A man's worth is what he is divided by what he thinks he is.
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The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.
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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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Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.
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Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
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When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
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A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
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Children are the keys of paradise.
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The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else--we are the busiest people in the world.
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The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self and begin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding a new identity or by blurring and camouflaging their individual distinctness and both these ends are reached by imitation.
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Nothing comes easily. My work smells of sweat.
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Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have.
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To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.
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