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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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Eric Hoffer
Age: 84 †
Born: 1898
Born: July 25
Died: 1983
Died: May 21
Philosopher
Psychologist
Writer
New York City
New York
Movement
Racket
Causes
Degenerates
Ends
Corporation
America
Cult
Good
Starts
Rise
Mass
Humor
Milieu

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People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.
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Without a sense of proportion there can be neither good taste nor genuine intelligence, nor perhaps moral integrity.
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Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.
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There is a time when the word eventually has the soothing effect of a promise, and a time when the word evokes in us bitterness and scorn.
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Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
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No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments.
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People in a hurry cannot think, cannot grow, nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility.
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Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors they can be smelled.
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Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
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The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
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We usually see only the things we are looking for- so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
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EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.
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Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.
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Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
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The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
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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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Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.
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Only the individual who has come to terms with his self can have a dispassionate attitude toward the world.
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A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.
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In human affairs every solution serves only to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. There are no final solutions.
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