Quote

Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.

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
Literature
Disinclination
Process
Alibi
Thought
Infrequently
Think
Exaggerating
Thinking
Exaggerate
Exaggeration
Refusal
Praise

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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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Man's chief goal in life is still to become and stay human, and defend his achievements against the encroachment of nature.
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It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
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An empty head is not really empty it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
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Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
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Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
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People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.
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We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it.
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For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future but an excuse can last for life.
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The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
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Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.
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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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The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.
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Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.
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It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the by-product of a stalemate between opposite vices.
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There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves.
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I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
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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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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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