Quote

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.

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
True
Perhaps
Reason
Grow
Feel
Respect
Feels
Grows
Mean
Freedom
Prohibition
Free
Condition
Opportunity
Conscience
Means
Conditions

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To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred. Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.
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It is not at all simple to understand the simple.
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Fair play with others is primarily the practice of not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us. We tend to rub our guilty conscience against others the way we wipe dirty fingers on a rag. This is as evil a misuse of others as the practice of exploitation.
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The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new . . . is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.
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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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Every extreme attitude is a fight from the self.
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We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
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Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.
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You cannot gauge the intelligence of an American by talking with him you must work with him. The American polishes and refines his way of doing things-even the most commonplace-the way the French of the 17th century polished their maxims.
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There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
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We cannot hate those who we despise.
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The world leans on us. When we sag, the whole world seems to droop.
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The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.
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It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
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To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.
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The greatest weariness comes from work not done.
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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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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 are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
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Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
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