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We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.

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
Hating
Hated
Common
Hate
Unified

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When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant.
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Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
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The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious.
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Help your sister's boat across the water, and yours too will reach the other side. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
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It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.
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It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
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The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.
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This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter
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Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
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Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
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What the intellectual craves above all else is to be taken seriously, to be treated as a decisive force in shaping history. He is far more at home in a society that weighs his every word and keeps close watch on his attitudes then in a society that cares not what he says or does. He would rather be persecuted than ignored.
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A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
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To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as he really is. It is by eliminating man from their equation that the makers of history can predict the future, and the writers of history can give a pattern to the past.
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The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
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Faith is primarily a process of identification the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.
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Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.
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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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It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise.
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To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.
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A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
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