Quote

That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor the flashes we are without growth and exhilaration.

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
Makes
Savor
Without
Exhilaration
Flash
Worthwhile
Catch
Unique
Growth
Felt
Flashes

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There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
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Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
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The conservatism of a religion - it's orthodoxy - is the inert coagulum of a once highly reactive sap.
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Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
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Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.
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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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We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true they ruin our dreams.
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Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. The crypto-businessman is the true revolutionary in a Communist country.
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Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.
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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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Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
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Those who feel guilty are afraid and those who are afraid somehow feel guilty. To the onlooker, too, the fearful seem guilty.
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It is part of the formidableness of a genuine mass movement that the self-sacrifice it promotes includes also a sacrifice of some of the moral sense, which cramps and restrains our nature.
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...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.
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The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else--we are the busiest people in the world.
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Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
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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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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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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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The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
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