Quote

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.

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
Life
Consciousness
Chiefs
Blemished
Realizing
Reached
Blurring
Either
Burden
Ineffectual
Desire
Findings
Slough
Individual
Finding
Unwanted
Ends
Identity
Imitation
Self
Begin
Frustrated
Trying
Realize
Chief
Distinctness

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Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
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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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We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.
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To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.
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It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.
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Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.
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It is also plausible that those movements with the greatest inner contradiction and between profession and practice - that is to say with a strong feeling of guilt - are likely to be the most fervent in imposing their faith on others.
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Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
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The conservatism of a religion - it's orthodoxy - is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap.
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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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Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
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Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul.
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A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
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It is the acquisition of skills in particular, irrespective of their utility, that is potent in making life meaningful. Since man has no inborn skills, the survival of the species has depended on the ability to acquire and perfect skills. Hence the mastery of skills is a uniquely human activity and yields deep satisfaction.
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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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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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Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
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To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.
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The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others.
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Children, savages and true believers remember far less what they have seen than what they have heard.
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