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The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche.

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
Still
Subconscious
Creature
Personifies
Devil
Ferocious
Creatures
Cellars
Within
Sealed
Nature
Psyche
Around
Cunning
Stills
Infinitely

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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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God alone is satisfied with what He is and can proclaim: I am what I am. Unlike God, man strives with all his might to be what he is not. He incessantly proclaims: I am what I am not.
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Radicalism itself ceases to be radical when absorbed mainly in preserving its control over a society or an economy.
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A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
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The desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection- real or imagined- by them.
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You cannot gauge the intelligence of an American by talking with him you must work with him. The American polishes and refines his way of doing things-even the most commonplace-the way the French of the 17th century polished their maxims.
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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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Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
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The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.
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Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.
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An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity--the endless flow of life and death--than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous.
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We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are never of one kind, that we never love without reservations and never hate with all our being cannot prevent us from seeing others as wholly black or white.
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The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.
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