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Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder.

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
Actually
Lack
Dissenters
Seems
Sight
Offends
Everything
Seem
Dusty
Never
Question
Bundles
Answers
Hesitation
Wonder
Conceived
Literature
Dissent
Though
Protest

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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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Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest.
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We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.
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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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The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self and begin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding a new identity or by blurring and camouflaging their individual distinctness and both these ends are reached by imitation.
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We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.
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Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.
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To change everything, simply change your attitude.
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To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.
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The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
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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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A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.
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We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs subordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.
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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
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Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
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Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not originate. To discover something wholly new can be a matter of chance, of idle tinkering, or even of the chronic dissatisfaction of the untalented.
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Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect.
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It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.
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Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
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The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.
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