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Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.

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
Prelude
Significance
Action
Ideas

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

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Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family-what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated?
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Whenever we proclaim the uniqueness of a religion , a truth , a leader, a nation, a race, a part or a holy cause, we are also proclaiming our own uniqueness.
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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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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.
Eric Hoffer
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Love-making is radical, while marriage is conservative.
Eric Hoffer
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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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Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
Eric Hoffer
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Perhaps our originality manifests itself most strikingly in what we do with that which we did not originate. To discover something wholly new can be a matter of chance, of idle tinkering, or even of the chronic dissatisfaction of the untalented.
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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.
Eric Hoffer
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Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person.
Eric Hoffer
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The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility
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There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
Eric Hoffer
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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.
Eric Hoffer
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A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.
Eric Hoffer
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A society that refuses to strive for superfluities is likely to end up lacking in necessities.
Eric Hoffer
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Language was invented to ask questions.
Eric Hoffer
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Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
Eric Hoffer
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Successful action tends to become an end in itself.
Eric Hoffer
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To change everything, simply change your attitude.
Eric Hoffer
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The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
Eric Hoffer