Quote

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.

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
Produce
Readiness
Lose
Collectives
Loses
Collective
Distinctness
Forget
Mask
Slough
Society
Willingness
Revulsion
Impulse
Compact
Individual
Sacrifice
Dissolve
Self
Losing
Unwanted
Whole

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Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
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The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious.
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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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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
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The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome.
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When the Greeks said, Whom the gods love die young, they probably meant, as Lord Sankey suggested, that those favored by the gods stay young till the day they die young and playful.
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Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
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Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.
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Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.
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We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for.
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Even in slight things the experience of the new is rarely without some stirring of foreboding.
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The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.
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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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To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.
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Laughter to begin with was probably glee at the misfortunes of others. The baring of the teeth in laughter hints at its savage ancestry. Animals have no malice, hence also no laughter. They never savor the sudden glory of Schadenfreude. It was its infectious quality that made of laughter a medium of mutuality.
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You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others - that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.
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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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The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unobtainable, envy takes the place of greed.
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Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
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