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Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors they can be smelled.

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
Contempt
Specific
Esteem
Literature
Self
Smelled
Odor

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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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Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
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The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.
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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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People in a hurry cannot think, cannot grow, nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility.
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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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In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.
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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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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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A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
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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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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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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
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Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.
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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
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All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.
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Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay.
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The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.
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It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
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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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