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Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.Eric Hoffer
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There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.Eric Hoffer
3
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.Eric Hoffer
4
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.Eric Hoffer
5
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities but its own talents.Eric Hoffer
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It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.Eric Hoffer
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We feel free when we escape - even if it be but from the frying pan to the fire.Eric Hoffer
8
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.Eric Hoffer
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Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.Eric Hoffer
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Even the sober desire for progress is sustained by faith–faith in the intrinsic goodness of human nature and in the omnipotence of science. It is a defiant and blasphemous faith, not unlike that held by the men who set out to build a "city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven" and who believed that "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.Eric Hoffer
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In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.Eric Hoffer
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The greatest weariness comes from work not done.Eric Hoffer
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No one is truly literate who cannot read his own heart.Eric Hoffer
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Anger is the prelude to courage.Eric Hoffer
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Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.Eric Hoffer
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In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.Eric Hoffer
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Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.Eric Hoffer
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Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.Eric Hoffer
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The beginning of thought is in disagreement - not only with others but also with ourselves.Eric Hoffer
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Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.Eric Hoffer
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Ideas have significance for him only as a prelude to action.Eric Hoffer
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To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.Eric Hoffer
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In the alchemy of man's soul almost all noble attributes--courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, etc.--can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless. Nature has no compassion. It is, in the words of William Blake, "a creation that groans, living on the death; where fish and bird and beast and tree and metal and stone live by devouring." Nature accepts no excuses and the only punishment it knows is death.Eric Hoffer
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We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.Eric Hoffer
25
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.Eric Hoffer
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If free enterprise becomes a proselytizing holy cause, it will be a sign that its workability and advantages have ceased to be self-evident.Eric Hoffer
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In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists.Eric Hoffer
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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.Eric Hoffer
29
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.Eric Hoffer
30
Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket.Eric Hoffer
31
They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor. (Eric Hoffer 1902-1983) .Eric Hoffer
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The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.Eric Hoffer
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Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.Eric Hoffer
34
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.Eric Hoffer
35
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.Eric Hoffer
36
When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.Eric Hoffer
37
If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must learn how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, values, and fantasies on everyday life.Eric Hoffer
38
The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a God or not. The atheist is a religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion.Eric Hoffer
39
There is perhaps some hope to be derived from the fact that in most instances where an attempt to realize an ideal society gave birth to the ugliness and violence of a prolonged active mass movement the experiment was made on a vast scale and with a heterogeneous population. Such was the case in the rise of Christianity and Islam, and in the French, Russian and Nazi revolutions. The promising communal settlements in the small state of Israel and the successful programs of socialization in the small Scandinavian states indicate perhaps that when the attempt to realize an ideal society is undertaken by a small nation with a more or less homogeneous population it can proceed and succeed in an atmosphere which is neither hectic nor coercive.Eric Hoffer
40
Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem.Eric Hoffer
41
Treasure the memories of past misfortunes they constitute our bank of fortitude.Eric Hoffer
42
The genuine artist is as much a dissatisfied person as the revolutionary yet how diametrically opposed are the products each distills from his dissatisfaction.Eric Hoffer
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When people are bored it is primarily with their own selves.Eric Hoffer
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When people are bored it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.Eric Hoffer
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It is thus with most of us we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay.Eric Hoffer
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It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have 'something worth fighting for' they do not feel like fighting.Eric Hoffer
47
Even in slight things the experience of the new is rarely without some stirring of foreboding.Eric Hoffer
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It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities.Eric Hoffer
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We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.Eric Hoffer
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You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.Eric Hoffer
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Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.Eric Hoffer
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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
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Faith is primarily a process of identification the process by which the individual ceases to be himself and becomes part of something eternal.Eric Hoffer
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Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain whether of our worth or worthlessness we are almost impervious to fear. Thus a feeling of utter unworthiness can be a source of courage.Eric Hoffer
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Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.Eric Hoffer
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We are made kind by being kind.Eric Hoffer
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The game of History is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.Eric Hoffer
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We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true they ruin our dreams.Eric Hoffer
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It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action while the distant hope acts as an opiate.Eric Hoffer
60
It is always safe to assume that people are more subtle and less sensitive than they seem.Eric Hoffer
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When people are free to do as they please they usually imitate each other.Eric Hoffer
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There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.Eric Hoffer
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There is a radicalism in all getting and a conservatism in all keeping. Lovemaking is radical while marriage is conservative.Eric Hoffer
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To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life.Eric Hoffer
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The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind.Eric Hoffer
66
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities but its own talents.Eric Hoffer
67
When people are free to do as they please they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced and partakes of the nature of a protest.Eric Hoffer
68
Fear is uncertainty.Eric Hoffer
69
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.Eric Hoffer
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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.Eric Hoffer
71
However much we guard against it we tend to shape ourselves in the image others have of us.Eric Hoffer
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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.Eric Hoffer
73
Power corrupts the few while weakness corrupts the many.Eric Hoffer
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Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny.Eric Hoffer
75
Not actual suffering but the hope of better things incites people to revolt.Eric Hoffer
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To believe that if only we had this or that we would be happy or to pursue any excessive desire diverts us from seeing that happiness depends on an adequate self.Eric Hoffer
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Fair play with others is primarily not blaming them for anything that is wrong with us.Eric Hoffer
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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.Eric Hoffer
79
The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.Eric Hoffer
80
We do not really feel grateful toward those who make our dreams come true they ruin our dreams.Eric Hoffer
81
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house.Eric Hoffer
82
It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.Eric Hoffer
83
It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.Eric Hoffer
84
Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.Eric Hoffer
85
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.Eric Hoffer
86
It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.Eric Hoffer
87
Children are the keys of paradise.Eric Hoffer
88
In times of change learners inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.Eric Hoffer
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The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.Eric Hoffer
90
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.Eric Hoffer
91
Our sense of power is more vivid when we break a man's spirit than when we win his heart.Eric Hoffer
92
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.Eric Hoffer
93
Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners.Eric Hoffer
94
The fear of becoming a 'has-been' keeps some people from becoming anything.Eric Hoffer
95
We have perhaps a natural fear of ends. We would rather be always on the way than arrive. Given the means, we hang on to them and often forget the ends.Eric Hoffer
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Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.Eric Hoffer
97
Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.Eric Hoffer
98
In times of change learners inherit the earth while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.Eric Hoffer
99
Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.Eric Hoffer