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No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments.

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
Might
Well
Matter
Shortcomings
Think
Achievements
Thinking
Rare
Achievement
Moments
Wells

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There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.
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The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.
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It is not at all simple to understand the simple.
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Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not originate. To discover something wholly new can be a matter of chance, of idle tinkering, or even of the chronic dissatisfaction of the untalented.
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There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect.
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Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
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We can never have enough of that which we really do not want.
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Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.
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Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.
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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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We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are never of one kind, that we never love without reservations and never hate with all our being cannot prevent us from seeing others as wholly black or white.
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The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.
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The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self and begin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding a new identity or by blurring and camouflaging their individual distinctness and both these ends are reached by imitation.
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Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.
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There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
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The ruthlessness born of self-seeking is ineffectual compared with the ruthlessness sustained by dedication to a holy cause. God wishes, said Calvin, that one should put aside all humanity when it is a question of striving for His glory.
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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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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
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People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
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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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