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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.
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
Wish
Strive
Ruthlessness
Born
Seeking
Calvin
Self
Glory
Sustained
Holy
Striving
Cause
Dedication
Question
Wishes
Humanity
Aside
Causes
Compared
Ineffectual
More quotes by Eric Hoffer
The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.
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The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.
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Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
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The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led.
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Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
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Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others.
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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 pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.
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In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling.
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We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.
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Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul.
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Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.
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The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money. The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been a passage from considerations of money to considerations of power.
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Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
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To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.
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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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Every extreme attitude is a fight from the self.
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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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It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.
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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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