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Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person.

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
Intention
Judgment
Deceptions
Seeing
Dormant
Evil
Awaken
Persons
Decency
Able
Intentions
Person
Deception
Every
Consists

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Though they seem at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never meet.
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...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves.
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The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.
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To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as he really is. It is by eliminating man from their equation that the makers of history can predict the future, and the writers of history can give a pattern to the past.
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If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.
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Our doubts about ourselves cannot be banished except by working at that which is the one and only thing we know we ought to do. Other people's assertions cannot silence the howling dirge within us. It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
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The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.
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The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche.
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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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The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome.
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What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored.
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Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence.
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It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
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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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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 desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection- real or imagined- by them.
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It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
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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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Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
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Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.
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