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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.

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
Longings
Specific
Holes
Longing
Flow
Soul
Something
Transmuted
Men
Pierced

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We can never have enough of that which we really do not want.
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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
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A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
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To be aware how fruitful the playful mood can be is to be immune to the propaganda of the alienated, which extols resentment as a fuel of achievement.
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It is apparently vital that we should be in the dark about ourselves not to be clear about our intentions, fears, and hopes. There is a stubborn effort in us to set up a compact screen between consciousness and the self.
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The individual's most vital need is to prove his worth, and this usually means an insatiable hunger for action. For it is only the few who can acquire a sense of worth by developing and employing their capacities and talents. The majority prove their worth by keeping busy.
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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience... The desire to escape or camouflage their unsatisfactory selves develops in the frustrated a facility for pretending -- for making a show -- and also a readiness to identify themselves wholly with an imposing spectacle.
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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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First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket.
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The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
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We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
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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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I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.
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Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.
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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 hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.
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There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
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Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family-what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated?
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Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.
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The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
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