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

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One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.
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A successful social technique consists perhaps in finding unobjectionable means for individual self-assertion.
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It is compassion rather than the principle of justice which can guard us against being unjust to our fellow men.
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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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There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.
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If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.
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