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First something is a great idea, then it becomes a cause, then it becomes a business and finally it becomes a racket.

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
Great
Cause
Something
Becomes
Causes
Idea
Business
Ideas
Firsts
Racket
First
Finally

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There is need for some kind of make-believe in order to face death unflinchingly. To our real, naked selves there is not a thing on earth or in heaven worth dying for.
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My writing is done in railroad yards while waiting for a freight, in the fields while waiting for a truck, and at noon after lunch. Towns are too distracting.
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A just society must strive with all its might to right wrongs even if righting wrongs is a highly perilous undertaking. But if it is to survive, a just society must be strong and resolute enough to deal swiftly and relentlessly with those who would mistake its good will for weakness.
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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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No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments.
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In human affairs, the best stimulus for running ahead is to have something we must run from.
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We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.
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With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
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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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Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.
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The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche.
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To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.
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When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
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A heresy can spring only from a system that is in full vigor.
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Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited.
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Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.
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If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.
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People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a have type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a have not type of self.
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The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.
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