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It is thus with most of us we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.

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
Certitude
Chiefly
Gossip
Thus
Personality
Character
People
Hearsay

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Children are the keys of paradise.
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If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.
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We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
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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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Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
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There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
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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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Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.
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There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
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Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
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Unpredictability, too, can become monotonous.
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Creativity is discontent translated into arts.
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The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
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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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To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.
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When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
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The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance.
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Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.
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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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It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.
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