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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.

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
Animal
Society
Grubbing
Stills
Uniquely
Still
Necessities
Human
Extravagant
Humans
Superfluous
Men
Reaches
Becomes

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When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong it easily becomes a fashion.
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When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
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With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
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The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter.
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EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.
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Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have.
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The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude. No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented as the embodiment of the one and only truth
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Practically all writers and artists are aware of their destiny and see themselves as actors in a fateful drama. With me, nothing is momentous: obscure youth, glorious old age, fateful coincidences - nothing really matters. I have written a number of good sentences. I have kept free of delusions. I know I am going to die soon.
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There are many who have grave scruples about deceiving but think it as nothing to deceive themselves.
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It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power - power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors they want to retaliate.
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There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
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What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people's faces as unfinished as their minds.
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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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Every extreme attitude is a fight from the self.
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The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
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Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family-what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated?
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To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.
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The chief burden of the frustrated is the consciousness of a blemished, ineffectual self, and their chief desire is to slough off the unwanted self and begin a new life. They try to realize this desire either by finding a new identity or by blurring and camouflaging their individual distinctness and both these ends are reached by imitation.
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It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
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Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
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