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

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It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice.
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Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.
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The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one's individual distinctness in a compact collective whole.
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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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The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me.
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Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.
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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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We can never have enough of that which we really do not want.
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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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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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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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There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
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Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.
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Without a sense of proportion there can be neither good taste nor genuine intelligence, nor perhaps moral integrity.
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Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.
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Woe to him inside a non-conformist clique who does not conform to non-conformity.
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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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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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People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.
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Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
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