The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.
ERIC HOFFERIt is doubtful whether the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power-power to oppress others.
More Eric Hoffer Quotes
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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.
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Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
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For many people, an excuse is better than an achievement because an achievement, no matter how great, leaves you having to prove yourself again in the future; but an excuse can last for life.
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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.
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When people are bored it is primarily with themselves.
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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.
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Communists are frustrated capitalists.
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Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there.
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An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.
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To know a person’s religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
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You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy.
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We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.
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The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
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We see through others only when we see through ourselves.
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Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
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There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its leastworthy members.
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The beginning of thought is in disagreement – not only with others but also with ourselves.
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People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
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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.
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Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses. Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.
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The education explosion is producing a vast number of people who want to live significant, important lives but lack the ability to satisfy this craving for importance by individual achievement. The country is being swamped with nobodies who want to be somebodies.
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Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.
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The creative mind is the playful mind. Philosophy is the play and dance of ideas.
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It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
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To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.
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I have a premonition that will not leave me: as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
ERIC HOFFER