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

Eric Hoffer

One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputations.
ERIC HOFFER

Freedom Harm Intellectual Privilege Reputation
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
ERIC HOFFER

Freedom Imitation People
Those who would sacrifice a generation to realize an ideal are the enemies of mankind.
ERIC HOFFER

Enemy Ideal Kind Man Sacrifice
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
Wise living consists perhaps less in acquiring good habits than in acquiring as few habits as possible.
ERIC HOFFER

Choice Goodness Habit Live Possible
Communists are frustrated capitalists.
ERIC HOFFER

Attitude Character Frustration Identity One Liner
Anger is a prelude to courage.
ERIC HOFFER

Angry Courage One Liner
Never have the young taken themselves so seriously, and the calamity is that they are listened to and deferred to by so many adults.
ERIC HOFFER

Adult Listening Serious Young
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.
ERIC HOFFER

Build Creation Image Learning Man Nature Perfection Technology
The trouble is not chiefly that our universities are unfit for students but that many present-day students are unfit for universities.
ERIC HOFFER

Change Children Education Student Trouble
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
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

Frustration Greatness Oneself Philosophy Satisfaction Wisdom
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.
ERIC HOFFER

Children Man Misery Mom Old Woman Young
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.
ERIC HOFFER

Best Education Fate Forget Freedom Gift Hands Mad Myself Nation Surrender Willing World
Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.
ERIC HOFFER

Belief Devil God Rise
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

Born Evil Government Human Kindness Life Sick Willing

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

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

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