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The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.

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
Political
Majority
Best
Usually
Game
Worst
Middle
Politics
Games
Heads
History
Played

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Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.
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One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.
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A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.
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Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.
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Those who feel guilty are afraid and those who are afraid somehow feel guilty. To the onlooker, too, the fearful seem guilty.
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No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion it is an evil government.
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If anybody asks me what I have accomplished, I will say all I have accomplished is that I have written a few good sentences.
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The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led.
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What merit there is in my thinking is derived from two peculiarities: (1) My inability to be familiar with anything. I simply can't take things for granted. (2) My endless patience. I assume that the only way to find an answer is to hang on long enough and keep groping.
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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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Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
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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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A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
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However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
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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.
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There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
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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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With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
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...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves.
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Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.
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