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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
Shape
Shapes
Future
Power
Way
Predicting
Predict

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

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Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.
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A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.
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There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
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We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact
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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.
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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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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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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 is not at all simple to understand the simple.
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An empty head is not really empty it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
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The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us.
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When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.
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A just society must strive with all its might to right wrongs even if righting wrongs is a highly perilous undertaking. But if it is to survive, a just society must be strong and resolute enough to deal swiftly and relentlessly with those who would mistake its good will for weakness.
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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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The superficiality of many is a result of deep fears. It takes spare time to think things out it takes free time to mature. People in a hurry may not think well or mature well. The next best is a state of perpetual puerility.
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It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
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A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
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The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto.
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It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
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A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.
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