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A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one's own life

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
Private
Meaning
Outside
Lives
Compensate
Others
Obsession
Life
Attempt
World
Passionate
Lack

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We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence.
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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 taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its antihumanity.
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No matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments.
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I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
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The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.
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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
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Call not that man wretched, who whatever ills he suffers, has a child to love.
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In an adequate social order, the untalented should be able to acquire a sense of usefulness and of growth without interfering with the development of talent around them
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The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.
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If anybody asks me what I have accomplished, I will say all I have accomplished is that I have written a few good sentences.
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Man's chief goal in life is still to become and stay human, and defend his achievements against the encroachment of nature.
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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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Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.
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They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society.
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Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
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We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs subordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.
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Craving, not having, is the mother of a reckless giving of oneself.
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