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The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.

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
Perhaps
Freedom
Free
Less
Test
Basic
Tests

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To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.
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Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
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Radicalism itself ceases to be radical when absorbed mainly in preserving its control over a society or an economy.
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The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.
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Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. The crypto-businessman is the true revolutionary in a Communist country.
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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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Communists are frustrated capitalists.
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In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.
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A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.
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Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.
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The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
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Though they seem at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never meet.
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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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There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
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The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate.
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To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.
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We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true they ruin our dreams.
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It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
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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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