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We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.

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
Excellence
Equality
Matters
Hope
Cannot
Matter
Clamor
Chiefly
Obtain

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In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.
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There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
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Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
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The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.
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One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
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Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
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In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling.
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The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
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In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it given a more or less free hand in the cultural field. By frustrating the scribe's craving for commanding action, the trader draws upon himself the scribe's wrath and scorn.
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The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.
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Dissipation is a form of self-sacrifice.
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A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion.
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To be aware how fruitful the playful mood can be is to be immune to the propaganda of the alienated, which extols resentment as a fuel of achievement.
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A man's worth is what he is divided by what he thinks he is.
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In an adequate social order, the untalented should be able to acquire a sense of usefulness and of growth without interfering with the development of talent around them
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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience... The desire to escape or camouflage their unsatisfactory selves develops in the frustrated a facility for pretending -- for making a show -- and also a readiness to identify themselves wholly with an imposing spectacle.
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To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.
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That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor the flashes we are without growth and exhilaration.
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Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.
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That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them.
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