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Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story - a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.

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
Causes
Ideal
Story
Search
Eminently
Purpose
Patterns
Storyteller
Stories
Basically
Largely
Without
Ideals
Pattern
Men
Meaning
Mission
Life
Development
Plot
Like
Cause
Missions

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To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
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Our doubts about ourselves cannot be banished except by working at that which is the one and only thing we know we ought to do. Other people's assertions cannot silence the howling dirge within us. It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
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The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.
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Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
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A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.
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Help your sister's boat across the water, and yours too will reach the other side. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
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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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Naivete in grownups is often charming but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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Only the individual who has come to terms with his self can have a dispassionate attitude toward the world.
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It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.
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There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
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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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Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited.
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...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.
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Every extreme attitude is a fight from the self.
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What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored.
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The compulsion to take ourselves seriously is in inverse proportion to our creative capacity. When the creative flow dries up, all we have left is our importance.
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It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.
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Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.
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Man is a luxury-loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.
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