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We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

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
Sometimes
Talent
Life
Told
Success
Volleyball
Opportunity
Talents
Desire
Creates
Business
Opportunities
Inspirational
Intense
Seems
Motivational

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The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.
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The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.
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The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.
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Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. The crypto-businessman is the true revolutionary in a Communist country.
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We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for.
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The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
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Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story - a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.
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The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life.
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When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
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To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.
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It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.
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Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.
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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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Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another.
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Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
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The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.
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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
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If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope.
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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience... The desire to escape or camouflage their unsatisfactory selves develops in the frustrated a facility for pretending -- for making a show -- and also a readiness to identify themselves wholly with an imposing spectacle.
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