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It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.
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
People
Assuming
Safe
Seem
Relationship
Less
Money
Assume
Seems
Subtle
Always
Sensitive
More quotes by Eric Hoffer
Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.
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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience... The desire to escape or camouflage their unsatisfactory selves develops in the frustrated a facility for pretending -- for making a show -- and also a readiness to identify themselves wholly with an imposing spectacle.
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A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.
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The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.
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The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter.
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Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
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Faith is primarily a process of identification the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.
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We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact
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People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.
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Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
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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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Spiritual stagnation ensues when man's environment becomes unpredictable or when his inner life is made wholly predictable.
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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
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There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
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EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.
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A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.
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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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The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.
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When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.
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Action is basically a reaction against loss of balance - a flailing of the arms to to regain one's balance. To dispose a soul to action, we must upset its equilibrium.
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