Quote

Resistance, whether to one's appetites or to the ways of the world, is a chief factor in the shaping of character.

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
World
Chief
Chiefs
Factors
Resistance
Ways
Appetites
Whether
Shaping
Character
Factor
Way
Appetite

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The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others.
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There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
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People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a have type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a have not type of self.
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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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We are unified both by hating in common and by being hated in common.
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The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.
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Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.
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There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail-keeper.
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Judgment consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions, but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person.
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To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as he really is. It is by eliminating man from their equation that the makers of history can predict the future, and the writers of history can give a pattern to the past.
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People in a hurry cannot think, cannot grow, nor can they decay. They are preserved in a state of perpetual puerility.
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It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
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Successful action tends to become an end in itself.
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It needs fanatical faith to rationalize our cowardice.
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Good and evil grow up together and are bound in an equilibrium that cannot be sundered. The most we can do is try to tilt the equilibrium toward the good.
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The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility
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It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is true of men as of dogs.
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Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.
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How frighteningly few are the persons whose death would spoil our appetite and make the world seem empty.
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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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