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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
Hate
Unified
Hating
Hated
Common

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There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
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Self-esteem and self-contempt have specific odors they can be smelled.
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The rule seems to be that those who find no difficulty in deceiving themselves are easily deceived by others. They are easily persuaded and led.
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There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.
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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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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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Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.
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Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.
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The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new . . . is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.
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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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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience... The desire to escape or camouflage their unsatisfactory selves develops in the frustrated a facility for pretending -- for making a show -- and also a readiness to identify themselves wholly with an imposing spectacle.
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Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance.
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In human affairs, the best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from.
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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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People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.
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There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
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A man's worth is what he is divided by what he thinks he is.
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The most troublesome problem which confronts social engineering is how to provide for the untalented and, what is equally important, how to provide against them.
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The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
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