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A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.

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
Society
Ends
Superfluities
Necessities
Refuses
Lacking
Likely
Strive
Refuse

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Nothing so bolsters our self-confidence and reconciles us with ourselves as the continuous ability to create to see things grow and develop under our hand, day in, day out.
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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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Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question. Social stagnation results not from a lack of answers but from the absence of the impulse to ask questions.
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Successful action tends to become an end in itself.
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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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In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.
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There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.
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...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.
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Naivete in grownups is often charming but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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That which corrodes the souls of the persecuted is the monstrous inner agreement with the prevailing prejudice against them.
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Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest.
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The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.
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The superficiality of many is a result of deep fears. It takes spare time to think things out it takes free time to mature. People in a hurry may not think well or mature well. The next best is a state of perpetual puerility.
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A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion.
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First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket.
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Commitment becomes hysterical when those who have nothing to give advocate generosity, and those who have nothing to give up preach renunciation.
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When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else - we are the busiest people in the world.
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We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
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We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.
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That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor the flashes we are without growth and exhilaration.
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