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We cannot hate those who we despise.

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
Cannot
Despise
Hate

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

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There is in most passions a shrinking away from ourselves. The passionate pursuer has all the earmarks of a fugitive.
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Man's chief goal in life is still to become and stay human, and defend his achievements against the encroachment of nature.
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In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.
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Anger is a prelude to courage.
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The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and function without him. This is true not only of the writer, artist and scientist, but of creators in other fields.With the noncreative it is the other way around: in whatever they do, they arrange things so that they themselves become indispensable.
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Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life.
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There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect.
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The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse.
Eric Hoffer
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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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Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.
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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.
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Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors they can be smelled.
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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.
Eric Hoffer
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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.
Eric Hoffer
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All great art is revolutionary because it touches upon the reality of man and questions the reality of the various transitory forms of human society.
Eric Hoffer
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...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves.
Eric Hoffer
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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.
Eric Hoffer
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The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome.
Eric Hoffer
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We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
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Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story - a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.
Eric Hoffer