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A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.

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
Impose
Minority
Minorities
Majority
Liberty
Free
Feels
Dissenting
Dissent

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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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They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society.
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Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.
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Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
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To find the cause of our ills in something outside ourselves, something specific that can be spotted and eliminated, is a diagnosis that cannot fail to appeal. To say that the cause of our troubles is not in us but in the Jews , and pass immediately to the extermination of the Jews, is a prescription likely to find a wide acceptance.
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All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.
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The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance.
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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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In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it given a more or less free hand in the cultural field. By frustrating the scribe's craving for commanding action, the trader draws upon himself the scribe's wrath and scorn.
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Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
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In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling.
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Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
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There is need for some kind of make-believe in order to face death unflinchingly. To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for.
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Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
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To be aware how fruitful the playful mood can be is to be immune to the propaganda of the alienated, which extols resentment as a fuel of achievement.
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We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
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There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
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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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Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.
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