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Tradition
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What greater reassurance can the weak have than that they are like anyone else?
-Eric Hoffer
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Tyranny
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There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets our norms and drives us from one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.
-Eric Hoffer
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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.
-Eric Hoffer
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Weakness
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It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat; that they are chosen when they are shunned.
-Eric Hoffer
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Wealth
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Man is a luxury loving animal. Take away play, fancies, and luxuries, and you will turn man into a dull, sluggish creature, barely energetic enough to obtain a bare subsistence. A society becomes stagnant when its people are too rational or too serious to be tempted by baubles.
-Eric Hoffer
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Wisdom
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The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.
-Eric Hoffer
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Work
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Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.
-Eric Hoffer
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Our greatest weariness comes from work not done.
-Eric Hoffer
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Youth
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Youth itself is a talent -- a perishable talent.
-Eric Hoffer
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Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
-Eric Hoffer
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Books by and about Eric Hoffer