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

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The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.
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It takes a vice to check a vice, and virtue is the by-product of a stalemate between opposite vices.
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In an adequate social order, the untalented should be able to acquire a sense of usefulness and of growth without interfering with the development of talent around them
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Whoever originated the cliche that money is the root of all evil knew hardly anything about the nature of evil and very little about human beings.
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In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling.
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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.
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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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The conservatism of a religion - it's orthodoxy - is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap.
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A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life
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Language was invented to ask questions.
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My writing is done in railroad yards while waiting for a freight, in the fields while waiting for a truck, and at noon after lunch. Towns are too distracting.
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Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
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EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.
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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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Our doubts about ourselves cannot be banished except by working at that which is the one and only thing we know we ought to do. Other people's assertions cannot silence the howling dirge within us. It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
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