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We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.

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
Good
Generalize
Generalization
Potent
Prone
Contagious
Assume
Assuming

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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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God alone is satisfied with what He is and can proclaim: I am what I am. Unlike God, man strives with all his might to be what he is not. He incessantly proclaims: I am what I am not.
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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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An empty head is not really empty it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
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Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.
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Fair play with others is primarily the practice of not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us. We tend to rub our guilty conscience against others the way we wipe dirty fingers on a rag. This is as evil a misuse of others as the practice of exploitation.
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Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.
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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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Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.
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When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
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The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life.
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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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Faith is primarily a process of identification the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.
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We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
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We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.
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There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect.
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Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.
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It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
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