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The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.

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
Derive
Satisfaction
Greater
Less
Desire
Others
Like

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Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
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The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me.
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If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope.
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We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for.
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Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
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Creativity is discontent translated into arts.
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EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.
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Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
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Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
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The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
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The superficiality of many is a result of deep fears. It takes spare time to think things out it takes free time to mature. People in a hurry may not think well or mature well. The next best is a state of perpetual puerility.
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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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When the Greeks said, Whom the gods love die young, they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested, that those favored by the gods stay young till the day they die young and playful.
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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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It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
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When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.
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people with a sense of fulfillment think it is a good world and would like to conserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change.
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We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
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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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The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person.
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