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The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility

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
Struggle
Purposeful
Food
Futility
Poor
Starvation
Free
Wholly
Lives
Shelter
Sense
Desperate
Live
Engaged
Poverty
Borderline

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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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There is a time when the word eventually has the soothing effect of a promise, and a time when the word evokes in us bitterness and scorn.
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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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However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
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You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.
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We cannot hate those who we despise.
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The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter.
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We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
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The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
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It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
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To change everything, simply change your attitude.
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A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.
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The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto.
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There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
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When the Greeks said, Whom the gods love die young, they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested, that those favored by the gods stay young till the day they die young and playful.
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When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong it easily becomes a fashion.
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Whenever we proclaim the uniqueness of a religion , a truth , a leader, a nation, a race, a part or a holy cause, we are also proclaiming our own uniqueness.
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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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