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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
Worth
Thing
Life
Purposeful
Nearest
Keeping
Busy
Majority
Prove

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To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.
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We can never have enough of that which we really do not want.
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When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
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It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
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Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.
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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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The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
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To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.
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Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.
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One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.
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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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Love-making is radical, while marriage is conservative.
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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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The desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection- real or imagined- by them.
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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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The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
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Nothing so bolsters our self-confidence and reconciles us with ourselves as the continuous ability to create to see things grow and develop under our hand, day in, day out.
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With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
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