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It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.

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
Trouble
Fighting
Whether
Freedom
Oppress
Others
Doubtful
Power
Oppressed
Ever
Pride
Fight

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The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
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There is need for some kind of make-believe in order to face death unflinchingly. To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for.
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Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay.
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Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another.
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To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.
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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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For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.
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It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.
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The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.
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We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
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To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. It not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give their allegiance to him who offers them a grievance.
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The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.
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Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
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The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate.
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Those who feel guilty are afraid and those who are afraid somehow feel guilty. To the onlooker, too, the fearful seem guilty.
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All great art is revolutionary because it touches upon the reality of man and questions the reality of the various transitory forms of human society.
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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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It is not at all simple to understand the simple.
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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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For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. And whether we are to line up with him or against him, it is well that we should know all we can concerning his nature and potentialities.
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