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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
Humor
Milieu
Movement
Racket
Causes
Degenerates
Ends
Corporation
America
Cult
Good
Starts
Rise
Mass

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A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.
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People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
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To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.
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Man's chief goal in life is still to become and stay human, and defend his achievements against the encroachment of nature.
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With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
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We cannot hate those who we despise.
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Those who feel guilty are afraid and those who are afraid somehow feel guilty. To the onlooker, too, the fearful seem guilty.
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For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future but an excuse can last for life.
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Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay.
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Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.
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...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves.
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Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole the church, party, nation and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society .
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There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves.
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Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.
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They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society.
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Quite often the social doctors become part of the disease.
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The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.
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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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Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.
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Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
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