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Excesses are essentially gestures. It is easy to be extremely cruel, magnanimous, humble or self-sacrificing when we see ourselves as actors in a performance.
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
Waste
Gestures
Sacrifice
Cruel
Actors
Excess
Easy
Essentially
Self
Extremely
Performance
Magnanimous
Performances
Excesses
Humble
Sacrificing
More quotes by Eric Hoffer
The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless. It is a pleasant surprise to ourselves.
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We are more prone to generalize the bad than the good. We assume that the bad is more potent and contagious.
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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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Sensuality reconciles us with the human race. The misanthropy of the old is due in large part to the fading of the magic glow of desire.
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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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It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
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There is no alienation that a little power will not cure.
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One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
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There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect.
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It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.
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America is still the best country for the common man -- white or black ... if he can't make it here he won't make it anywhere else.
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To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. It not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give their allegiance to him who offers them a grievance.
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Without a sense of proportion there can be neither good taste nor genuine intelligence, nor perhaps moral integrity.
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No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments.
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Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
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Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
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To be fully alive is to feel that everything is possible.
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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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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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Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.
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