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Where unity and self-sacrifice are indispensable for the normal functioning of society, everyday life is likely to be either religiofied (common tasks turned into holy causes) or militarized.
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
Causes
Likely
Society
Tasks
Common
Turned
Self
Everyday
Life
Sacrifice
Militarized
Normal
Functioning
Holy
Indispensable
Either
Unity
More quotes by Eric Hoffer
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
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The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.
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To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.
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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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In a modern society people can live without hope only when kept dazed and out of breath by incessant hustling.
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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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EVERY intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are.
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Nature has no compassion. Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.
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The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
Eric Hoffer
Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.
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Those who are in love with the present can be cruel and corrupt but not genuinely vicious. They cannot be methodically and consistently ruthless.
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An easygoing person is probably more accessible to the realization of eternity--the endless flow of life and death--than one who takes his prospects and duties overseriously. It is the overserious who are truly frivolous.
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Nationalist pride, like other variants of pride, can be a substitute for self-respect.
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One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
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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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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.
Eric Hoffer
However much we guard against it, we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.
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It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
Eric Hoffer
Freedom released the energies of the masses not by exhilarating but by unbalancing, irritating, and goading.
Eric Hoffer
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.
Eric Hoffer
