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The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.

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
Eternal
Effort
Existence
Totalitarianism
Literature
Bondage
Individual
Individuality
Justify
Efforts
Eternity

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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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It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.
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One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.
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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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Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
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It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
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People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
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Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.
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It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
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The conservatism of a religion - it's orthodoxy - is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap.
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The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.
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The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
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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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Creativity is discontent translated into arts.
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The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new . . . is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.
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Language was invented to ask questions.
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When the Greeks said, Whom the gods love die young, they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested, that those favored by the gods stay young till the day they die young and playful.
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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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They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society.
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There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
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