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There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.

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
Race
Tendencies
Nations
Tolerance
Judge
Group
Judging
Members
Groups
Distinct
Nation
Tendency

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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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Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.
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Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard.
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Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.
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Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
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One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.
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Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.
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The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else--we are the busiest people in the world.
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To be aware how fruitful the playful mood can be is to be immune to the propaganda of the alienated, which extols resentment as a fuel of achievement.
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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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The true believer, no matter how rowdy and violent his acts, is basically an obedient and submissive person.
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Whoever originated the cliche that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the nature of evil and very little about human beings.
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The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto.
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The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.
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It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.
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However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
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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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The ruthlessness born of self-seeking is ineffectual compared with the ruthlessness sustained by dedication to a holy cause. God wishes, said Calvin, that one should put aside all humanity when it is a question of striving for His glory.
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The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
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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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