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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.

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
Left
Compulsion
Self
Proportion
Take
Seriously
Flow
Importance
Capacity
Creativity
Dries
Creative
Inverse

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Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.
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We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.
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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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Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
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The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us.
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They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society.
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