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

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It is the acquisition of skills in particular, irrespective of their utility, that is potent in making life meaningful. Since man has no inborn skills, the survival of the species has depended on the ability to acquire and perfect skills. Hence the mastery of skills is a uniquely human activity and yields deep satisfaction.
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I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.
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Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
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Faith is primarily a process of identification the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.
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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 ideal of self-advancement which the civilizing west offers to backward populations brings with it the plague of individual frustration. All the advantages brought by the West are ineffectual substitutes for the sheltering and soothing anonymity of communal existence.
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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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The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary, yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.
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We cannot hate those who we despise.
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Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.
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The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.
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We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.
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If anybody asks me what I have accomplished, I will say all I have accomplished is that I have written a few good sentences.
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A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed.
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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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When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong it easily becomes a fashion.
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Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have.
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People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint.
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Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
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