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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
Majority
Prove
Worth
Thing
Life
Purposeful
Nearest
Keeping
Busy

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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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To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.
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Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
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The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me.
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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 real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.
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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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We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
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Creativity is discontent translated into arts.
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A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific.
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Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
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The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us.
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People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
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The ideal of self-advancement which the civilizing west offers to backward populations brings with it the plague of individual frustration. All the advantages brought by the West are ineffectual substitutes for the sheltering and soothing anonymity of communal existence.
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Facts are counterrevolutionary.
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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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We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
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The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.
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In human affairs, the best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from.
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