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

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The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
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Spiritual stagnation ensues when man's environment becomes unpredictable or when his inner life is made wholly predictable.
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Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
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There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
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When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
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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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The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money. The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been a passage from considerations of money to considerations of power.
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The chemistry of dissatisfaction is as the chemistry of some marvelously potent tar. In it are the building stones of explosives, stimulants, poisons, opiates, perfumes and stenches.
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We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.
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Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.
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Communists are frustrated capitalists.
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The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
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Help your sister's boat across the water, and yours too will reach the other side. Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
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We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
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Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder.
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When you automate an industry you modernize it when you automate a life you primitivize it.
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Self-righteousness is a manifestation of self-contempt.
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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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