One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
ERIC HOFFERThe search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
More Eric Hoffer Quotes
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When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
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Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.
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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.
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Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
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Communists are frustrated capitalists.
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Anger is a prelude to courage.
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Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults.
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Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create something in the image of nature is to create a machine, and it was by learning the inner working of nature that man became a builder of machines.
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The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.
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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.
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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.
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The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.
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I can never forget that one of the most gifted, best educated nations in the world, of its own free will, surrendered its fate into the hands of a maniac.
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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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No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion; it is an evil government.
ERIC HOFFER