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When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.

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
Truths
Possession
Likely
Everyday
Common
Truth
Believe
Indifferent

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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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My writing is done in railroad yards while waiting for a freight, in the fields while waiting for a truck, and at noon after lunch. Towns are too distracting.
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When you automate an industry you modernize it when you automate a life you primitivize it.
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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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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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The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money. The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been a passage from considerations of money to considerations of power.
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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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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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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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Whenever we proclaim the uniqueness of a religion , a truth , a leader, a nation, a race, a part or a holy cause, we are also proclaiming our own uniqueness.
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There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
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It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
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Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul.
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Every extreme attitude is a fight from the self.
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To change everything, simply change your attitude.
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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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The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.
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Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
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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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