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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

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
ERIC HOFFER

Deep Happiness Search Wisdom
Take man’s most fantastic invention- God. Man invents God in the image of his longings, in the image of what he wants to be, then proceeds to imitate that image, vie with it, and strive to overcome it.
ERIC HOFFER

Atheist God Image Imitation Invention Man
Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.
ERIC HOFFER

Ability Creativity Introduction Nature
The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
ERIC HOFFER

Angel Hate Human Man Nature Savior
Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
ERIC HOFFER

Difference Equality Freedom Passion Reality
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
ERIC HOFFER

Empty Hate Life Passionate Purpose
We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.
ERIC HOFFER

Cure Privacy Sick Trouble
We see through others only when we see through ourselves.
ERIC HOFFER

Character Philosophy See Wisdom Yourself
To learn you need a certain degree of confidence, not too much and not too little. If you have too little confidence, you will think you can’t learn. If you have too much, you will think you don’t have to learn.
ERIC HOFFER

Confidence Learning Need Thinking Yourself
The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.
ERIC HOFFER

Ideas Leadership Play Quality World
Jesus was not a Christian, nor was Marx a Marxist.
ERIC HOFFER

God Identity Perspective Religious
The ratio between supervisory and producing personnel is always highest where the intellectuals are in power. In a Communist country it takes half the population to supervise the other half.
ERIC HOFFER

Country Government High Intellectual Power Production
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
ERIC HOFFER

Reality Understand
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
ERIC HOFFER

Blessing Count Hard Mathematics Ourselves
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
The future belongs to the learners-not the knowers.
ERIC HOFFER

Future Learning World

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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