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In human affairs, the best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from.

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
Best
Human
Stimulus
Humans
Affairs
Must
Affair
Something
Ahead
Progress
Society
Running

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Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
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Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.
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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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Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have.
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Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
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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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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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When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.
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Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
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A just society must strive with all its might to right wrongs even if righting wrongs is a highly perilous undertaking. But if it is to survive, a just society must be strong and resolute enough to deal swiftly and relentlessly with those who would mistake its good will for weakness.
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There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
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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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A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
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People in a hurry cannot think, cannot grow, nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility.
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You cannot gauge the intelligence of an American by talking with him you must work with him. The American polishes and refines his way of doing things-even the most commonplace-the way the French of the 17th century polished their maxims.
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