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We usually see only the things we are looking for- so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.

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
Usually
Looking
Sometimes
Much
Things

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

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The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.
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The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.
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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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Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.
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Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.
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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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All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.
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There is a time when the word eventually has the soothing effect of a promise, and a time when the word evokes in us bitterness and scorn.
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It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
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Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.
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It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.
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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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What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.
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No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments.
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Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
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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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The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
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Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
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A man's worth is what he is divided by what he thinks he is.
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It is thus with most of us we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.
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