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A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one’s own life.

Eric Hoffer

It is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
ERIC HOFFER

Difference Doubt Fight Freedom Oppression Power Pride
Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.
ERIC HOFFER

Beginning Confidence Hate Heart Life Lost Way
A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.
ERIC HOFFER

Feeling Freedom Opinion Willing
We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Deep Ourselves Philosophy Run
What monstrosities would walk the streets were some people’s faces as unfinished as their minds.
ERIC HOFFER

Appearance Face Mindset People Walk
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
ERIC HOFFER

Deep Future Power Way
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
ERIC HOFFER

Freedom Imitation People
Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success.
ERIC HOFFER

Chance Failure Person Repeat Success
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
ERIC HOFFER

Imitation One Liner Rude Strength Weakness
There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
ERIC HOFFER

Doubt Humility Life Practice Selfish Worth
All leaders strive to turn their followers into children.
ERIC HOFFER

Children Leadership Transformation
Language was invented to ask questions. Answers may be given by grunts and gestures, but questions must be spoken. Humanness came of age when man asked the first question.
ERIC HOFFER

Action Age Human Invention Language Man Talk
It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
ERIC HOFFER

Attraction Evil Power Promise Weakness
Rudeness is the weak man’s limitation of strength.
ERIC HOFFER

Limitation Man Rude Strength Weakness
The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.
ERIC HOFFER

Age Children Difference Education Human Learning People Togetherness True Willing
Unlike the pattern which seems to prevail in the rest of life, in the human species the weak not only survive but often triumph over the strong. The self-hatred inherent in the weak unlocks energies far more formidable then those mobilized by an ordinary struggle for existence.
ERIC HOFFER

Energy Existence Hate Human Life Pattern Strong Struggle Survive Weakness Win

A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one’s own life.

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A passionate obsession with the outside world or the private lives of others is an attempt to compensate for a lack of meaning in one’s own life.

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