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

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In a trader-dominated society, the scribe is usually kept out of the management of affairs, but it given a more or less free hand in the cultural field. By frustrating the scribe's craving for commanding action, the trader draws upon himself the scribe's wrath and scorn.
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Though dissenters seem to question everything in sight, they are actually bundles of dusty answers and never conceived a new question. What offends us most in the literature of dissent is the lack of hesitation and wonder.
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To the creative individual all experience is seminal-all events are equidistant from new ideasand insights.
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It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.
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people with a sense of fulfillment think it is a good world and would like to conserve it as it is, while the frustrated favor radical change.
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However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
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The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders.
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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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Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience.
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...the majority of people cannot endure the bareness and futility of their lives unless they have some ardent dedication, or some passionate pursuit in which they can lose themselves.
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The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own.
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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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It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.
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The hardest thing to cope with is not selfishness or vanity or deceitfulness, but sheer stupidity.
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We never say so much as when we do not quite know what we want to say. We need few words when we have something to say, but all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice when we have nothing to say and want desperately to say it.
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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
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Actual creativeness is a matter of moments. One has to piece together the minute grains to make a lump. And it is so easy to miss the momentary flashes, it is like sluicing in placer mining. He who lets the flakes float by has nothing to show for his trouble.
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That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor the flashes we are without growth and exhilaration.
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However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing.
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