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Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.

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
Consistently
Cruel
Present
Religion
Methodically
Cannot
Genuinely
Love
Ruthless
Corrupt
Vicious

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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
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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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Naivete in grownups is often charming but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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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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America is still the best country for the common man -- white or black ... if he can't make it here he won't make it anywhere else.
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A just society must strive with all its might to right wrongs even if righting wrongs is a highly perilous undertaking. But if it is to survive, a just society must be strong and resolute enough to deal swiftly and relentlessly with those who would mistake its good will for weakness.
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Our doubts about ourselves cannot be banished except by working at that which is the one and only thing we know we ought to do. Other people's assertions cannot silence the howling dirge within us. It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
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Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect.
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Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
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Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have.
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A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
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Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.
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We can never have enough of that which we really do not want.
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Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.
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The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self and begin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding a new identity or by blurring and camouflaging their individual distinctness and both these ends are reached by imitation.
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