Quote

The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else--we are the busiest people in 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
Work
Happiness
Vague
Time
Born
Contrary
Life
Living
Result
World
Fear
Usually
People
Feelings
Ought
Else
Results
Busiest
Anything
Full
Hurried
Thing
Feeling
Wasting

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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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We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are never of one kind, that we never love without reservations and never hate with all our being cannot prevent us from seeing others as wholly black or white.
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Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others.
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The superficiality of many is a result of deep fears. It takes spare time to think things out it takes free time to mature. People in a hurry may not think well or mature well. The next best is a state of perpetual puerility.
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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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In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling.
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An empty head is not really empty it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
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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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Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder.
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Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.
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For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.
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In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it given a more or less free hand in the cultural field. By frustrating the scribe's craving for commanding action, the trader draws upon himself the scribe's wrath and scorn.
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It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.
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It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.
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The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto.
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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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The ruthlessness born of self-seeking is ineffectual compared with the ruthlessness sustained by dedication to a holy cause. God wishes, said Calvin, that one should put aside all humanity when it is a question of striving for His glory.
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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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One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.
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It is not at all simple to understand the simple.
Eric Hoffer