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We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.

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
Never
Minutely
Precisely
Happened
Remember
Really
Things

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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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A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
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Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
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The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
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Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
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People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
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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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Children are the keys of paradise.
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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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The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one's individual distinctness in a compact collective whole.
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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 man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific.
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Communists are frustrated capitalists.
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It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
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The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.
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What merit there is in my thinking is derived from two peculiarities: (1) My inability to be familiar with anything. I simply can't take things for granted. (2) My endless patience. I assume that the only way to find an answer is to hang on long enough and keep groping.
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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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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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It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.
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Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
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