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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.

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
Ever
Doubtful
Imitate
Oppressed
Pride
Fight
Freedom
Retaliate
Others
Oppress
Power
Oppressors

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The main effect of a real revolution is perhaps that it sweeps away those who do not know how to wish, and brings to the front men with insatiable appetites for action, power and all that the world has to offer.
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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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Love-making is radical, while marriage is conservative.
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Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.
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It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.
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There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
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...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves.
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Facts are counterrevolutionary.
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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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Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.
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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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The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.
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There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind.
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The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others.
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It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice.
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I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
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It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.
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It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.
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