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Naivete in grownups is often charming but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.

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
Ignorant
Ignorance
Naivete
Often
Indistinguishable
Coupled
Grownups
Charming
Stupidity
Vanity

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Woe to him inside a non-conformist clique who does not conform to non-conformity.
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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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The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.
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To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.
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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 majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves.
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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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Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
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The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance.
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Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.
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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
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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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There is need for some kind of make-believe in order to face death unflinchingly. To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for.
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The conservatism of a religion - it's orthodoxy - is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap.
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The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life.
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A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
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The necessary has never been man's top priority. The passionate pursuit of the nonessential and the extravagant is one of the chief traits of human uniqueness. Unlike other forms of life, man's greatest exertions are made in the pursuit not of necessities but of superfluities.
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We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
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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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Sensuality reconciles us with the human race. The misanthropy of the old is due in large part to the fading of the magic glow of desire.
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