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The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life.

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
Thing
Life
Purposeful
Nearest
Keeping
Busy
Majority
Prove
Worth

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We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
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Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.
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There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.
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What merit there is in my thinking is derived from two peculiarities: (1) My inability to be familiar with anything. I simply can't take things for granted. (2) My endless patience. I assume that the only way to find an answer is to hang on long enough and keep groping.
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Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person.
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To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.
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The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.
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There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
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The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.
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A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life
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The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.
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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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When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
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It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
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People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.
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We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.
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It is not at all simple to understand the simple.
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It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.
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Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
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The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth
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