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We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.

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
Prove
Ready
Opinion
Dies
Fact
Facts
Trying
Readiness
Indeed

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A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.
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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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One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.
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Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
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It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
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Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
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Children are the keys of paradise.
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The ruthlessness born of self-seeking is ineffectual compared with the ruthlessness sustained by dedication to a holy cause. God wishes, said Calvin, that one should put aside all humanity when it is a question of striving for His glory.
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The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.
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Where everything is possible miracles become commonplaces, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident.
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It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice.
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The desire to be different from the people we live with is sometimes the result of our rejection- real or imagined- by them.
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Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story - a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.
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There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
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It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.
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A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific.
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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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It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.
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people with a sense of fulfillment think it is a good world and would like to conserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change.
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The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
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