Quote

We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for.

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
Life
Also
Give
Live
Need
Suffer
Giving
Meaning
Needs
Existence
Much
Suffering
Something
Purpose

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If anybody asks me what I have accomplished, I will say all I have accomplished is that I have written a few good sentences.
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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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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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A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
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Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
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...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.
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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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Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
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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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The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
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For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. And whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature and potentialities.
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There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.
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No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion it is an evil government.
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The most troublesome problem which confronts social engineering is how to provide for the untalented and, what is equally important, how to provide against them.
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Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
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The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led.
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It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the by-product of a stalemate between opposite vices.
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The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.
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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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It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.
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