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We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact

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
Fact
Facts
Ready
Opinion
Dies

More quotes by Eric Hoffer

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Proselytizing is more a passionate search for something not yet found than a desire to bestow upon the world something we already have. It is a search for a final and irrefutable demonstration that our absolute truth is indeed the one and only truth. The proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others.
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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 search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
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If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope.
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The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and must compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.
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The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness or holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold onto.
Eric Hoffer
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We find it hard to apply the knowledge of ourselves to our judgment of others. The fact that we are never of one kind, that we never love without reservations and never hate with all our being cannot prevent us from seeing others as wholly black or white.
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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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Naivete in grownups is often charming but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
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The Greeks invented logic but were not fooled by it.
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Nothing so bolsters our self-confidence and reconciles us with ourselves as the continuous ability to create to see things grow and develop under our hand, day in, day out.
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The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate.
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Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise.
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This food-and-shelter theory concerning man's efforts is without insight. The desire for praise is more imperative than the desire for food and shelter
Eric Hoffer
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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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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.
Eric Hoffer
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We usually see only the things we are looking for- so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
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When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant.
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The majority prove their worth by keeping busy. A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life.
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The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and function without him. This is true not only of the writer, artist and scientist, but of creators in other fields.With the noncreative it is the other way around: in whatever they do, they arrange things so that they themselves become indispensable.
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