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The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.
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
Ideas
Mass
Disregard
Play
Leadership
Minor
World
Roles
Minors
Movement
Counts
Opinion
Gestures
Quality
Arrogant
Others
Complete
Defiance
Seems
Role
Gesture
More quotes by Eric Hoffer
The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.
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An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity--the endless flow of life and death--than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous.
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Spiritual stagnation ensues when man's environment becomes unpredictable or when his inner life is made wholly predictable.
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We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
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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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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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Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.
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First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket.
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Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
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A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.
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The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and function without him. This is true not only of the writer, artist and scientist, but of creators in other fields.With the noncreative it is the other way around: in whatever they do, they arrange things so that they themselves become indispensable.
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The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
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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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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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Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.
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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
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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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We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
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The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others.
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A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
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