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It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.

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
Unused
Talents
Poison
Talent
Doubt
Within
Secrete
Self
Rusting
Bloodstream

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For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future but an excuse can last for life.
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For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute, and they must have the feeling that by the possession of some potent doctrine, infallible leader or some new technique they have access to a source of irresistible power.
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People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
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We can remember minutely and precisely only the things which never really happened to us.
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It is the individual only who is timeless. Societies, cultures, and civilizations -- past and present -- are often incomprehensible to outsiders, but the individual's hungers, anxieties, dreams, and preoccupations have remained unchanged through the millenia.
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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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A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
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We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.
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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 proselytizing fanatic strengthens his own faith by converting others. The creed whose legitimacy is most easily challenged is likely to develop the strongest proselytizing impulse.
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Add a few drops of venom to a half truth and you have an absolute truth.
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Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.
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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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Language was invented to ask questions.
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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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Lack of sensitivity is perhaps basically an unawareness of ourselves.
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Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment. The crypto-businessman is the true revolutionary in a Communist country.
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EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.
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Our doubts about ourselves cannot be banished except by working at that which is the one and only thing we know we ought to do. Other people's assertions cannot silence the howling dirge within us. It is our talents rusting unused within us that secrete the poison of self-doubt into our bloodstream.
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Universities are an example of organizations dominated wholly by intellectuals yet, outside pure science, they have not been an optimal milieu for the unfolding of creative talents. In neither art, music, literature, technology and social theory, nor planning have the Universities figured as originators or as seedbeds of new talents and energies.
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