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

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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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Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others.
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It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
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Absolute power turns its possessors not into a God but an anti-God. For God turned clay into men, while the absolute despot turns men into clay.
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One wonders whether a generation that demands instant satisfaction of all its needs and instant solution of the world's problems will produce anything of lasting value. Such a generation, even when equipped with the most modern technology, will be essentially primitive it will stand in awe of nature, and submit to the tutelage of medicine men.
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The desire to belong is partly a desire to lose oneself.
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Fair play is primarily not blaming others for anything that is wrong with us.
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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
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People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
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Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.
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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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Though they seem at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never meet.
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When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.
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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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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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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 most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.
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In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued.
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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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Where unity and self-sacrifice are indispensable for the normal functioning of society, everyday life is likely to be either religiofied (common tasks turned into holy causes) or militarized.
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