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...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.

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
Life
Shaping
Respond
Ability
Chance
Everything

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

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The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.
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Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another.
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The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth
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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.
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Laughter to begin with was probably glee at the misfortunes of others. The baring of the teeth in laughter hints at its savage ancestry. Animals have no malice, hence also no laughter. They never savor the sudden glory of Schadenfreude. It was its infectious quality that made of laughter a medium of mutuality.
Eric Hoffer
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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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Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.
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We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
Eric Hoffer
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When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong it easily becomes a fashion.
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It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.
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Ours is a golden age of minorities. At no time in the past have dissident minorities felt so much at home and had so much room to throw their weight around. They speak and act as if they were the people, and what they abominate most is the dissent of the majority.
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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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A good sentence is a key . It unlocks the mind of the reader.
Eric Hoffer
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It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
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It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
Eric Hoffer
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Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.
Eric Hoffer
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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.
Eric Hoffer
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To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.
Eric Hoffer
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We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true they ruin our dreams.
Eric Hoffer
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The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money. The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been a passage from considerations of money to considerations of power.
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