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The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.

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
Way
Predicting
Predict
Shape
Shapes
Future
Power

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

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We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
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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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We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.
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It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.
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For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.
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Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
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Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
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The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility
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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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Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another.
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I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.
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The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.
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You cannot gauge the intelligence of an American by talking with him you must work with him. The American polishes and refines his way of doing things-even the most commonplace-the way the French of the 17th century polished their maxims.
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Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
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The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.
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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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Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
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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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In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling.
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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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