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The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new . . . is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.

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
Among
Rear
Society
Outcast
Fugitives
Difficult
Risky
Outcasts
Firsts
Failures
Grapple
First
Meeting
Vanguard
Work
Task
Mastering
Like
Meetings
Undertaken
Tasks
Misfits

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Communists are frustrated capitalists.
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There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect.
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Language was invented to ask questions.
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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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A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.
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Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
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Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.
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Creativity is discontent translated into arts.
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Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
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A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.
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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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The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.
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It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
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Anger is a prelude to courage.
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The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
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