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When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.

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
Self
Lives
Interests
Clinging
Need
Individual
Forms
Spoiled
Giving
Living
Essence
Dedication
Needs
Form
Meaning
Devotion
Something
Seems
Worth
Desperate
Give
Seem
Loyalty
Live
Interest
Surrender
Futile
Might
Society
Apart
Prospects

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Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.
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An empty head is not really empty it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
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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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We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.
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The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life.
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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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Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.
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A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
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There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
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Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
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In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it given a more or less free hand in the cultural field. By frustrating the scribe's craving for commanding action, the trader draws upon himself the scribe's wrath and scorn.
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It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
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Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
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Whenever you trace the origin of a skill or practices which played a crucial role in the ascent of man, we usually reach the realm of play.
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In human affairs every solution serves only to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. There are no final solutions.
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