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The idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.

Richard Hofstadter

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Richard Hofstadter
Age: 54 †
Born: 1916
Born: August 6
Died: 1970
Died: October 24
Historian
University Teacher
Buffalo
New York
Would
Idea
Minds
Paranoid
Men
Force
Normal
Profoundly
People
Use
Value
Disturbed
Makes
Expression
Applied
Littles
Style
Phenomenon
Ideas
Politics
Contemporary
Little
Values
Significant
Modes
Mind
Less
Historical
Relevance

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The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast, too much attainted by wounds and ailments to be robust, but too strong and resourceful to succumb.
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As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive.
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The role of third parties is to sting like a bee, then die.
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Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic.
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Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege.
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If for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination.
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We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.
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