Quote

Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.

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
Skills
Origin
Role
Realm
Usually
Realms
Roles
Crucial
Practice
Skill
Literature
Whenever
Ascent
Play
Played
Trace
Men
Reach
Practices

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It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
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Faith is primarily a process of identification the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.
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Action is basically a reaction against loss of balance - a flailing of the arms to to regain one's balance. To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium.
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We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
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The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the front men with insatiable appetites for action, power and all that the world has to offer.
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Whoever originated the cliche that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the nature of evil and very little about human beings.
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The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
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The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us.
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The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
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Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.
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Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.
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For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. And whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature and potentialities.
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The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.
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Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
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However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing.
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Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
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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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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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We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.
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That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them.
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