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Glory Is Largely A Theatrical Concept. There Is No Striving For Glory Without A Vivid Awareness Of An Audience... The Desire To Escape Or Camouflage Their Unsatisfactory Selves Develops In The Frustrated A Facility For Pretending -- For Making A Show -- And Also A Readiness To Identify Themselves Wholly With An Imposing Spectacle.

-Eric Hoffer

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Glory Is Largely A

Eric Hoffer

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Glory Is Largely A Theatrical Concept. There Is No Striving For Glory Without A Vivid Awareness Of An Audience... The Desire To Escape Or Camouflage Their Unsatisfactory Selves Develops In The Frustrated A Facility For Pretending -- For Making A Show -- And Also A Readiness To Identify Themselves Wholly With An Imposing Spectacle.

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More From Eric Hoffer

There Would Be No Society If Living Together Depended Upon Understanding Each Other.

In A Time Of Drastic Change, It Is The Learners Who Inherit The Future.

We Feel Free When We Escape - Even If It Be But From The Frying Pan To The Fire.

Action Can Give Us The Feeling Of Being Useful, But Only Words Can Give Us A Sense Of Weight And Purpose.

The History Of This Country Was Made Largely By People Who Wanted To Be Left Alone. Those Who Could Not Thrive When Left To Themselves Never Felt At Ease In America.

There Is A Close Connection Between Lack Of Confidence And The Passionate State Of Mind.

Glory Is Largely A Theatrical Concept. There Is No Striving For Glory Without A Vivid Awareness Of An Audience.

There Is A Radicalism In All Getting, And A Conservatism In All Keeping. Lovemaking Is Radical, While Marriage Is Conservative.

The Truth Seems To Be That Propaganda On Its Own Cannot Force Its Way Into Unwilling Minds; Neither Can It Inculcate Something Wholly New; Nor Can It Keep People Persuaded Once They Have Ceased To Believe. It Penetrates Into Minds Already Open, And Rather Than Instill Opinion It Articulates And Justifies Opinions Already Present In The Minds Of Its Recipients.

To The Frustrated, Freedom From Responsibility Is More Attractive Than Freedom From Restraint. They Are Eager To Barter Their Independence For Relief From The Burdens Of Willing, Deciding And Being Responsible For Inevitable Failure. They Willingly Abdicate The Directing Of Their Lives To Those Who Want To Plan, Command And Shoulder All Responsibility.

[the Designated Or Chosen Leader Tries To] Articulate And Justify The Resentment Dammed Up In The Souls Of The Frustrated. He Kindles The Vision Of A Breathtaking Future So As To Justify The Sacrifice Of A Transitory Present. He Stages The World Of Make-believe So Indispensable For The Realization Of Self-sacrifice And United Action.

When The Greeks Said, Whom The Gods Love Die Young, They Probably Meant, As Lord Sankey Suggested, That Those Favored By The Gods Stay Young Till The Day They Die; Young And Playful.

Rudeness Luxuriates In The Absence Of Self-respect.

Lack Of Sensitivity Is Perhaps Basically An Unawareness Of Ourselves.

All Mass Movements Generate In Their Adherents A Readiness To Die And A Proclivity For United Action; All Of Them, Irrespective Of The Doctrine They Preach And The Program They Project, Breed Fanaticism, Enthusiasm, Fervent Hope, Hatred And Intolerance; All Of Them Are Capable Of Releasing A Powerful Flow Of Activity In Certain Departments Of Life; All Of Them Demand Blind Faith And Singlehearted Allegiance.

The Paleolithic Hunters Who Painted The Unsurpassed Animal Murals On The Ceiling Of The Cave At Altamira Had Only Rudimentary Tools. Art Is Older Than Production For Use, And Play Older Than Work. Man Was Shaped Less By What He Had To Do Than By What He Did In Playful Moments. It Is The Child In Man That Is The Source Of His Uniqueness And Creativeness, And The Playground Is The Optimal Milieu For The Unfolding Of His Capacities.

The Fanatical Communist Refuses To Believe Any Unfavorable Report Or Evidence About Russia, Nor Will He Be Disillusioned By Seeing With His Own Eyes The Cruel Misery Inside The Soviet Promised Land. It Is The True Believer's Ability To "shut His Eyes And Stop His Ears" To Facts That Do Not Deserve To Be Either Seen Or Heard Which Is The Source Of His Unequaled Fortitude And Constancy. He Cannot Be Frightened By Danger, Nor Disheartened By Obstacles, Nor Baffled By Contradictions Because He Denies Their Existence.

True Loyalty Between Individuals Is Possible Only In A Loose And Relatively Free Society.

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.

The Chief Difference Between Me And Others Is That I Have Plenty Of Time Not Only Because I Am Without A Multitude Of Responsibilities And Without Daily Tasks, Which Demand Attention: But Also Because I Am Basically Without Ambition. Neither The Present Nor The Future Has Claims On Me.

When Hopes And Dreams Are Loose In The Streets, It Is Well For The Timid To Lock Doors, Shutter Windows And Lie Low Until The Wrath Has Passed.

Every Intense Desire Is Perhaps Basically A Desire To Be Different From What We Are.

Compassion Alone Stands Apart From The Continuous Traffic Between Good And Evil Proceeding Within Us.

Love-making Is Radical, While Marriage Is Conservative.

We Are Unified Both By Hating In Common And By Being Hated In Common.

Our Sense Of Power Is More Vivid When We Break A Man's Spirit Than When We Win His Heart. For We Can Win A Man's Heart One Day And Lose It The Next. But When We Break A Proud Spirit We Achieve Something That Is Final And Absolute.

Resistance, Whether To One's Appetites Or To The Ways Of The World, Is A Chief Factor In The Shaping Of Character.

There Is No Telling To What Extremes Of Cruelty And Ruthlessness A Man Will Go When He Is Freed From The Fears, Hesitations, Doubts And The Vague Stirrings Of Decency That Go With Individual Judgement. When We Lose Our Individual Independence In The Corporateness Of A Mass Movement, We Find A New Freedom- Freedom To Hate, Bully, Lie, Torture, Murder And Betray Without Shame And Remorse. Herein Undoubtedly Lies Part Of The Attractiveness Of A Mass Movement

My Writing Is Done In Railroad Yards While Waiting For A Freight, In The Fields While Waiting For A Truck, And At Noon After Lunch. Towns Are Too Distracting.

It Is To Escape The Responsibility For Failure That The Weak So Eagerly Throw Themselves Into Grandiose Undertakings.

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.

It Is A Juvenile Notion That A Society Needs A Lofty Purpose And A Shining Vision To Achieve Much. Both In The Market Place And On The Battlefield Men Who Set Their Hearts On Toys Have Often Displayed Unequal Initiative And Drive. And One Must Be Ignorant Of The Creative Process To Look For A Close Correspondence Between Motive And Achievement In The World Of Thought And Imagination.

When Cowardice Becomes A Fashion Its Adherents Are Without Number, And It Masquerades As Forbearance, Reasonableness And Whatnot.

Imitation Is Often A Shortcut To A Solution. We Copy When We Lack The Inclination, The Ability Or The Time To Work Out An Independent Solution. People In A Hurry Will Imitate More Readily Than People At Leisure. Hustling Thus Tends To Produce Uniformity. And In The Deliberate Fusing Of Individuals Into A Compact Group, Incessant Action Will Play A Considerable Role.

A Multitude Of Words Is Probably The Most Formidable Means Of Blurring And Obscuring Thought. There Is No Thought, However Momentous, That Cannot Be Expressed Lucidly In 200 Words.

Proselytizing Is More A Passionate Search For Something Not Yet Found Than A Desire To Bestow Upon The World Something We Already Have. It Is A Search For A Final And Irrefutable Demonstration That Our Absolute Truth Is Indeed The One And Only Truth. The Proselytizing Fanatic Strengthens His Own Faith By Converting Others.

That Which Is Unique And Worthwhile In Us Makes Itself Felt Only In Flashes. If We Do Not Know How To Catch And Savor The Flashes We Are Without Growth And Exhilaration.

Mass Movements Can Rise And Spread Without Belief In A God, But Never Without Belief In A Devil.

Dissipation Is A Form Of Self-sacrifice.

There Can Be No Mass Movement Without Some Deliberate Misrepresentation Of Facts.

Misrepresentation

All Great Art Is Revolutionary Because It Touches Upon The Reality Of Man And Questions The Reality Of The Various Transitory Forms Of Human Society.

It Is The Pull Of Opposite Poles That Stretches Souls. And Only Stretched Souls Make Music.

It Is Doubtful If The Oppressed Ever Fight For Freedom. They Fight For Pride And Power - Power To Oppress Others. The Oppressed Want Above All To Imitate Their Oppressors; They Want To Retaliate.

It Is Remarkable By How Much A Pinch Of Malice Enhances The Penetrating Power Of An Idea Or An Opinion. Our Ears, It Seems, Are Wonderfully Attuned To Sneers And Evil Reports About Our Fellow Men.

Faith, Enthusiasm, And Passionate Intensity In General Are Substitutes For The Self-confidence Born Of Experience And The Possession Of Skill. Where There Is The Necessary Skill To Move Mountains There Is No Need For The Faith That Moves Mountains.

Self Confidence

We Are Told That Talent Creates Its Own Opportunities. But It Sometimes Seems That Intense Desire Creates Not Only Its Own Opportunities, But Its Own Talents.

Self-righteousness Is A Loud Din Raised To Drown The Voice Of Guilt Within Us.

Unlike The Pattern Which Seems To Prevail In The Rest Of Life, In The Human Species The Weak Not Only Survive But Often Triumph Over The Strong. The Self-hatred Inherent In The Weak Unlocks Energies Far More Formidable Then Those Mobilized By An Ordinary Struggle For Existence.

The Creative Mind Is The Playful Mind. Philosophy Is The Play And Dance Of Ideas.

It Is A Strange Thing That Both The Injurer And The Injured, The Sinner And He Who Is Sinned Against, Should Find In The Mass Movement An Escape From A Blemished Life.

Man's Chief Goal In Life Is Still To Become And Stay Human, And Defend His Achievements Against The Encroachment Of Nature.

Those In Possession Of Absolute Power Can Not Only Prophesy And Make Their Prophecies Come True, But They Can Also Lie And Make Their Lies Come True.

If A Society Is To Preserve Stability And A Degree Of Continuity, It Must Learn How To Keep Its Adolescents From Imposing Their Tastes, Values, And Fantasies On Everyday Life.

The Basic Test Of Freedom Is Perhaps Less In What We Are Free To Do Than In What We Are Free Not To Do.

Wise Living Consists Perhaps Less In Acquiring Good Habits Than In Acquiring As Few Habits As Possible.

In A Trader-dominated Society, The Scribe Is Usually Kept Out Of The Management Of Affairs, But It Given A More Or Less Free Hand In The Cultural Field. By Frustrating The Scribe's Craving For Commanding Action, The Trader Draws Upon Himself The Scribe's Wrath And Scorn.

Rudeness Is The Weak Man's Limitation Of Strength.

Those Who Lack The Capacity To Achieve Much In An Atmosphere Of Freedom Will Clamor For Power.

Youth Itself Is A Talent, A Perishable Talent.

There Is Sublime Thieving In All Giving. Someone Gives Us All He Has And We Are His.

No Totalitarian Censor Can Approach The Implacability Of The Censor Who Controls The Line Of Communication Between The Outer World And Our Consciousness. Nothing Is Allowed To Reach Us Which Might Weaken Our Confidence And Lower Our Morale. To Most Of Us Nothing Is So Invisible As An Unpleasant Truth.

Nothing So Bolsters Our Self-confidence And Reconciles Us With Ourselves As The Continuous Ability To Create; To See Things Grow And Develop Under Our Hand, Day In, Day Out.

Self Confidence

We Can Be Satisfied With Moderate Confidence In Ourselves And With A Moderately Good Opinion Of Ourselves, But The Faith We Have In A Holy Cause Has To Be Extravagant And Uncompromising.

It Is The Stretched Soul That Makes Music, And Souls Are Stretched By The Pull Of Opposites-opposite Bents, Tastes, Yearnings, Loyalties. Where There Is No Polarity-where Energies Flow Smoothly In One Direction-there Will Be Much Doing But No Music.

All Leaders Strive To Turn Their Followers Into Children.

Only The Individual Who Has Come To Terms With His Self Can Have A Dispassionate Attitude Toward The World.

We Clamor For Equality Chiefly In Matters In Which We Ourselves Cannot Hope To Obtain Excellence.

It Was The Craving To Be A One And Only People Which Impelled The Ancient Hebrews To Invent A One And Only God Whose One And Only People They Were To Be.

It Is A Perplexing And Unpleasant Truth That When Men Already Have "something Worth Fighting For,they Do Not Feel Like Fighting.

The Short-lived Self, Teetering On The Edge Of Extinction, Is The Only Thing That Can Ever Really Matter.

Our Present Addiction To Pollsters And Forecasters Is A Symptom Of Our Chronic Uncertainty About The Future... We Watch Our Experts Read The Entrails Of Statistical Tables And Graphs The Way The Ancients Watched Their Soothsayers Read The Entrails Of A Chicken.

We Have Rudiments Of Reverence For The Human Body, But We Consider As Nothing The Rape Of The Human Mind.

It Is Doubtful Whether The Oppressed Ever Fight For Freedom. They Fight For Pride And Power-power To Oppress Others.

Both Faith And Terror Are Instruments For The Elimination Of Individual Self-respect. Terror Crushes The Autonomy Of Self-respect, Where Faith Obtains Its More Or Less Voluntary Surrender. In Both Cases, The Result Of The Elimination Of Individual Autonomy Is - Automatism. Both Faith And Terror Reduce The Human Entity To A Formula That Can Be Manipulated At Will.

The Nineteenth Century Planted The Words Which The Twentieth Century Ripened Into The Atrocities Of Stalin And Hitler. There Is Hardly An Atrocity Committed In The Twentieth Century That Was Not Foreshadowed Or Even Advocated By Some Noble Man Of Words In The Nineteenth.

Atrocities Committed

If Anybody Asks Me What I Have Accomplished, I Will Say All I Have Accomplished Is That I Have Written A Few Good Sentences.

A Plant Needs Roots In Order To Grow. With Man It Is The Other Way Around: Only When He Grows Does He Have Roots And Feels At Home In The World.

The Ruthlessness Born Of Self-seeking Is Ineffectual Compared With The Ruthlessness Sustained By Dedication To A Holy Cause. God Wishes, Said Calvin, That One Should Put Aside All Humanity When It Is A Question Of Striving For His Glory.

It Is Apparently Vital That We Should Be In The Dark About Ourselves Not To Be Clear About Our Intentions, Fears, And Hopes. There Is A Stubborn Effort In Us To Set Up A Compact Screen Between Consciousness And The Self.

To The Old, The New Is Usually Bad News.

Though They Seem At Opposite Poles, Fanatics Of All Kinds Are Actually Crowded Together At One End. It Is The Fanatic And The Moderate Who Are Poles Apart And Never Meet.

Whoever Originated The Cliche That Money Is The Root Of All Evil Knew Hardly Anything About The Nature Of Evil And Very Little About Human Beings.

The Sense Of Inferiority Inherent In The Act Of Imitation Breeds Resentment. The Impulse Of The Imitators Is To Overcome The Model They Imitate.

The Less Satisfaction We Derive From Being Ourselves, The Greater Is Our Desire To Be Like Others.

When We Believe Ourselves In Possession Of The Only Truth, We Are Likely To Be Indifferent To Common Everyday Truths.

To Be Ruthless Requires Belief That Our Life On Earth Is But A Brief Prelude To An Afterlife, Or A Temporary Sacrifice Before Some Utopia Can Be Instituted. Where There Is The Necessary Technical Skill To Move Mountains, There Is No Need For The Faith That Moves Mountains.

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.

There Is Probably An Element Of Malice In Our Readiness To Overestimate People - We Are, As It Were, Laying Up For Ourselves The Pleasure Of Later Cutting Them Down To Size.

One Might Equate Growing Up With A Mistrust Of Words. A Mature Person Trusts His Eyes More Than His Ears. Irrationality Often Manifests Itself In Upholding The Word Against The Evidence Of The Eyes. Children, Savages And True Believers Remember Far Less What They Have Seen Than What They Have Heard.

The Renaissance Was A Time Of Mercenary Soldiers, Ours Is A Time Of Mercenary Labor.

Craving, Not Having, Is The Mother Of A Reckless Giving Of Oneself.

One Of The Marks Of A Truly Vigorous Society Is The Ability To Dispense With Passion As A Midwife Of Action - The Ability To Pass Directly From Thought To Action.

Religion Is Not A Matter Of God, Church, Holy Cause, Etc. These Are But Accessories. The Source Of Religious Preoccupation Is In The Self, Or Rather The Rejection Of The Self. Dedication In The Obverse Side Of Self-rejection. Man Alone Is A Religious Animal Because, As Montaigne Points Out, It Is A Malady Confined To Man, And Not Seen In Any Other Creature, To Hate And Despise Ourselves.

Commitment Becomes Hysterical When Those Who Have Nothing To Give Advocate Generosity, And Those Who Have Nothing To Give Up Preach Renunciation.

The Difficult And Risky Task Of Meeting And Mastering The New . . . Is Not Undertaken By The Vanguard Of Society But By Its Rear. It Is The Misfits, Failures, Fugitives, Outcasts And Their Like Who Are Among The First To Grapple With The New.

Animals Often Strike Us As Passionate Machines.

Unless A Man Has Talents To Make Something Of Himself, Freedom Is An Irksome Burden. Of What Avail Is Freedom To Choose If The Self Be Ineffectual? We Join A Mass Movement To Escape Individual Responsibility, Or, In The Words Of The Ardent Young Nazi, "to Be Free From Freedom."

There Is In Even The Most Selfish Passion A Large Element Of Self-abnegation. It Is Startling To Realize That What We Call Extreme Self-seeking Is Actually Self-renunciation. The Miser, Health Addict, Glory Chaser And Their Like Are Not Far Behind The Selfless In The Exercise Of Self-sacrifice.

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

A Man's Soul Is Pierced As It Were With Holes, And As His Longings Flow Through Each They Are Transmuted Into Something Specific.

There Is A Tendency To Judge A Race, A Nation Or Any Distinct Group By Its Leastworthy Members.

A Doctrine Insulates The Devout Not Only Against The Realities Around Them But Also Against Their Own Selves. The Fanatical Believer Is Not Conscious Of His Envy, Malice, Pettiness And Dishonesty. There Is A Wall Of Words Between His Consciousness And His Real Self.

Learners Inherit The Earth; While The Learned Find Themselves Beautifully Equipped To Deal With A World That No Longer Exists.

Absolute Faith Corrupts As Absolutely As Absolute Power.

We Can Remember Minutely And Precisely Only The Things Which Never Really Happened To Us.

Naivete In Grownups Is Often Charming; But When Coupled With Vanity It Is Indistinguishable From Stupidity.

Action Is At Bottom A Swinging And Flailing Of The Arms To Regain One's Balance And Keep Afloat.

This Food-and-shelter Theory Concerning Man's Efforts Is Without Insight. Our Most Persistent And Spectacular Efforts Are Concerned Not With The Preservation Of What We Are But With The Building Up Of An Imaginary Conception Of Ourselves In The Opinion Of Others. The Desire For Praise Is More Imperative Than The Desire For Food And Shelter.

Self-esteem And Self-contempt Have Specific Odors; They Can Be Smelled.

What Monstrosities Would Walk The Streets Were Some People's Faces As Unfinished As Their Minds.

We Have Perhaps A Natural Fear Of Ends. We Would Rather Be Always On The Way Than Arrive. Given The Means, We Hang On To Them And Often Forget The Ends.

A Free Society Is As Much A Threat To The Intellectual's Sense Of Worth As An Automated Economy Is To The Workingman's Sense Of Worth. Any Social Order That Can Function With A Minimum Of Leadership Will Be Anathema To The Intellectual.

Actual Creativeness Is A Matter Of Moments. One Has To Piece Together The Minute Grains To Make A Lump. And It Is So Easy To Miss The Momentary Flashes, It Is Like Sluicing In Placer Mining. He Who Lets The Flakes Float By Has Nothing To Show For His Trouble.

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.

Intolerance Is The ''do Not Touch'' Sign On Something That Cannot Bear Touching. We Do Not Mind Having Our Hair Ruffled, But We Will Not Tolerate Any Familiarity With The Toupee Which Covers Our Baldness.

To Dispose A Soul To Action We Must Upset Its Equilibrium.

Anger Is A Prelude To Courage.

The Beginning Of Thought Is In Disagreement - Not Only With Others But Also With Ourselves.

It Is Easier To Love Humanity As A Whole Than To Love One's Neighbor.

It Is Often The Failure Who Is The Pioneer In New Lands, New Undertakings, And New Forms Of Expression.

When Cowardice Is Made Respectable, Its Followers Are Without Number Both From Among The Weak And The Strong; It Easily Becomes A Fashion.

Man Staggers Through Life Yapped At By His Reason, Pulled And Shoved By His Appetites, Whispered To By Fears, Beckoned By Hopes. Small Wonder That What He Craves Most Is Self-forgetting.

For Men To Plunge Headlong Into An Undertaking Of Vast Change, They Must Be Intensely Discontented Yet Not Destitute, And They Must Have The Feeling That By The Possession Of Some Potent Doctrine, Infallible Leader Or Some New Technique They Have Access To A Source Of Irresistible Power.

That Which Corrodes The Souls Of The Persecuted Is The Monstrous Inner Agreement With The Prevailing Prejudice Against Them.

There Is No Reason To Believe That The Nature Of The Violent Minorities Is Now Greatly Different From What It Was In The Past. What Has Changed Is The Will And Ability Of The Majority To React.

We Cannot Hate Those Who We Despise.

To Believe That If We Could Have But This Or That We Would Be Happy Is To Suppress The Realization That The Cause Of Our Unhappiness Is In Our Inadequate And Blemished Selves. Excessive Desire Is Thus A Means Of Suppressing Our Sense Of Worthlessness.

Compassion Is The Antitoxin Of The Soul.

Unless A Man Has The Talents To Make Something Of Himself, Freedom Is An Irksome Burden.

Ideas Have Significance For Him Only As A Prelude To Action.

The Desire To Be Different From The People We Live With Is Sometimes The Result Of Our Rejection- Real Or Imagined- By Them.

There Is In Most Passions A Shrinking Away From Ourselves. The Passionate Pursuer Has All The Earmarks Of A Fugitive.

The Weakness Of A Soul Is Proportionate To The Number Of Truths That Must Be Kept From It.

In Products Of The Human Mind, Simplicity Marks The End Of A Process Of Refining, While Complexity Marks A Primitive Stage. Michelangelo 's Definition Of Art As The Purgation Of Superfluities Suggests That The Creative Effort Consists Largely In The Elimination Of That Which Complicates And Confuses A Pattern.

Nowhere At Present Is There Such A Measureless Loathing Of Their Country By Educated People As In America.

It Is A Paradox That In Our Time Of Drastic Rapid Change, When The Future Is In Our Midst Devouring The Present Before Our Eyes, We Have Never Been Less Certain About What Is Ahead Of Us.

When People Are Free To Do As They Please, They Usually Imitate Each Other.

A War Is Not Won If The Defeated Enemy Has Not Been Turned Into A Friend.

We See Through Others Only When We See Through Ourselves.

Where Unity And Self-sacrifice Are Indispensable For The Normal Functioning Of Society, Everyday Life Is Likely To Be Either Religiofied (common Tasks Turned Into Holy Causes) Or Militarized.

The Rule Seems To Be That Those Who Find No Difficulty In Deceiving Themselves Are Easily Deceived By Others. They Are Easily Persuaded And Led.

The Best Part Of The Art Of Living Is To Know How To Grow Old Gracefully.

A Man Is Likely To Mind His Own Business When It Is Worth Minding.

We Need Not Only A Purpose In Life To Give Meaning To Our Existence But Also Something To Give Meaning To Our Suffering. We Need As Much Something To Suffer For As Something To Live For.

The Passion To Get Ahead Is Sometimes Born Of The Fear Lest We Be Left Behind.

The Pleasure We Derive From Doing Favors Is Partly In The Feeling It Gives Us That We Are Not Altogether Worthless. It Is A Pleasant Surprise To Ourselves.

Humility Is Not Renunciation Of Pride But The Substitution Of One Pride For Another.

Our Achievements Speak For Themselves. What We Have To Keep Track Of Are Our Failures, Discouragements And Doubts.

What Greater Reassurance Can The Weak Have Than That They Are Like Anyone Else?

In Human Affairs Every Solution Serves Only To Sharpen The Problem, To Show Us More Clearly What We Are Up Against. There Are No Final Solutions.

In The Alchemy Of Man's Soul Almost All Noble Attributes- Courage, Honor, Love, Hope, Faith, Duty, Loyalty, And So On - Can Be Transmuted Into Ruthlessness. Compassion Alone Stands Apart From The Continuous Traffic Between Good And Evil Proceeding Within Us. Compassion Is The Antitoxin Of The Soul: Where There Is Compassion, Even The Most Poisonous Impulses Remain Relatively Harmless.

The Wise Learn From The Experience Of Others, And The Creative Know How To Make A Crumb Of Experience Go A Long Way.

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.

In An Adequate Social Order, The Untalented Should Be Able To Acquire A Sense Of Usefulness And Of Growth Without Interfering With The Development Of Talent Around Them

People With A Sense Of Fulfillment Think It Is A Good World And Would Like To Conserve It As It Is, While The Frustrated Favor Radical Change.

A Man's Worth Is What He Is Divided By What He Thinks He Is.

The Remarkable Thing Is That We Really Love Our Neighbor As Ourselves: We Do Unto Others As We Do Unto Ourselves. We Hate Others When We Hate Ourselves. We Are Tolerant Toward Others When We Tolerate Ourselves. We Forgive Others When We Forgive Ourselves. We Are Prone To Sacrifice Others When We Are Ready To Sacrifice Ourselves.

The Ignorant Are A Reservoir Of Daring. It Almost Seems That Those Who Have Yet To Discover The Known Are Particularly Equipped For Dealing With The Unknown. The Unlearned Have Often Rushed In Where The Learned Feared To Tread, And It Is The Credulous Who Are Tempted To Attempt The Impossible. They Know Not Whither They Are Going, And Give Chance A Chance.

When People Are Bored It Is Primarily With Themselves.

A Peculiar Side Of Credulity Is That It Is Often Joined With A Proneness To Imposture. The Association Of Believing And Lying Is Not Characteristic Solely Of Children. They Inability Or Unwillingness To See Things As They Are Promotes Both Gullibility And Charlatanism.

You Accept Certain Unlovely Things About Yourself And Manage To Live With Them. The Atonement For Such An Acceptance Is That You Make Allowances For Others - That You Cleanse Yourself Of The Sin Of Self-righteousness.

Our Passionate Preoccupation With The Sky, The Stars, And A God Somewhere In Outer Space Is A Homing Impulse. We Are Drawn Back To Where We Came From.

How Frighteningly Few Are The Persons Whose Death Would Spoil Our Appetite And Make The World Seem Empty.

What The Intellectual Craves Above All Else Is To Be Taken Seriously, To Be Treated As A Decisive Force In Shaping History. He Is Far More At Home In A Society That Weighs His Every Word And Keeps Close Watch On His Attitudes Then In A Society That Cares Not What He Says Or Does. He Would Rather Be Persecuted Than Ignored.

It Is Not Actual Suffering But The Taste Of Better Things Which Excites People To Revolt.

Unpredictability, Too, Can Become Monotonous.

Unpredictability

It Is Easier To Love Humanity As A Whole Than To Love One's Neighbor. ... Some Of The Worst Tyrannies Of Our Day Genuinely Are "vowed" To The Service Of Mankind, Yet Can Function Only By Pitting Neighbor Against Neighbor. The All-seeing Eye Of A Totalitarian Regime Is Usually The Watchful Eye Of The Next-door Neighbor. In A Communist State Love Of Neighbor May Be Classed As Counter-revolutionary.

Communists Are Frustrated Capitalists.

With Some People Solitariness Is An Escape Not From Others But From Themselves. For They See In The Eyes Of Others Only A Reflection Of Themselves.

Every Extreme Attitude Is A Fight From The Self.

We Are Ready To Die For An Opinion But Not For A Fact: Indeed, It Is By Our Readiness To Die That We Try To Prove The Factualness Of Our Opinion.

A Good Sentence Is A Key . It Unlocks The Mind Of The Reader.

Our Credulity Is Greatest Concerning The Things We Know Least About. And Since We Know Least About Ourselves, We Are Ready To Believe All That Is Said About Us. Hence The Mysterious Power Of Both Flattery And Calumny.

The Leader Has To Be Practical And A Realist, Yet Must Talk The Language Of The Visionary And The Idealist.

Whenever You Trace The Origin Of A Skill Or Practices Which Played A Crucial Role In The Ascent Of Man, We Usually Reach The Realm Of Play.

How Much Easier Is Self-sacrifice Than Self-realization!

Animals Can Learn, But It Is Not By Learning That They Become Dogs, Cats, Or Horses. Only Man Has To Learn To Become What He Is Supposed To Be.

We Can Never Have Enough Of That Which We Really Do Not Want.

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.

No Matter What Our Achievements Might Be, We Think Well Of Ourselves Only In Rare Moments. We Need People To Bear Witness Against Our Inner Judge, Who Keeps Book On Our Shortcomings And Transgressions. We Need People To Convince Us That We Are Not As Bad As We Think We Are.

Poverty When Coupled With Creativeness Is Usually Free Of Frustration. This Is True Of The Poor Artisan Skilled In His Trade And Of The Poor Writer, Artist, And Scientist In The Full Possession Of Creative Powers. Nothing So Bolsters Our Self-confidence And Reconciles Us With Ourselves As The Continuous Ability To Create; To See Things Grow And Develop Under Our Hand, Day In, Day Out. The Decline Of Handicrafts In Modern Times Is Perhaps One Of The Causes For The Rise Of Frustration And The Increased Susceptibility Of The Individual To Mass Movements.

Self Confidence

You Cannot Gauge The Intelligence Of An American By Talking With Him; You Must Work With Him. The American Polishes And Refines His Way Of Doing Things-even The Most Commonplace-the Way The French Of The 17th Century Polished Their Maxims.

Our Doubts About Ourselves Cannot Be Banished Except By Working At That Which Is The One And Only Thing We Know We Ought To Do. Other People's Assertions Cannot Silence The Howling Dirge Within Us. It Is Our Talents Rusting Unused Within Us That Secrete The Poison Of Self-doubt Into Our Bloodstream.

Language Was Invented To Ask Questions. Answers May Be Given By Grunts And Gestures, But Questions Must Be Spoken. Humanness Came Of Age When Man Asked The First Question. Social Stagnation Results Not From A Lack Of Answers But From The Absence Of The Impulse To Ask Questions.

It Is The Individual Only Who Is Timeless. Societies, Cultures, And Civilizations -- Past And Present -- Are Often Incomprehensible To Outsiders, But The Individual's Hungers, Anxieties, Dreams, And Preoccupations Have Remained Unchanged Through The Millenia.

The Impression Somehow Prevails That The True Believer, Particularly The Religious Individual, Is A Humble Person. The Truth Is That The Surrendering And Humbling Of The Self Breeds Pride And Arrogance.

The Untalented Are More At Ease In A Society That Gives Them Valid Alibis For Not Achieving Than In One Where Opportunities Are Abundant. In An Affluent Society, The Alienated Who Clamor For Power Are Largely Untalented People Who Cannot Make Use Of The Unprecedented Opportunities For Self-realization, And Cannot Escape The Confrontation With An Ineffectual Self.

The Burning Conviction That We Have A Holy Duty Towards Others Is Often A Way Of Attaching Our Drowning Selves To A Passing Raft. What Looks Like A Giving Hand Is Often A Holding On For Dear Life. Take Away Our Holy Duties And You Leave Our Lives Puny And Meaningless. 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.

It Would Be Difficult To Exaggerate The Degree To Which We Are Influenced By Those We Influence.

A Grievance Is Most Poignant When Almost Redressed.

The Revulsion From An Unwanted Self, And The Impulse To Forget It, Mask It, Slough It Off And Lose It, Produce Both A Readiness To Sacrifice The Self And A Willingness To Dissolve It By Losing One's Individual Distinctness In A Compact Collective Whole.

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.

One Of The Chief Differences Between An Adult And A Juvenile Is That The Adult Knows When He Is An Ass While The Juvenile Never Does.

To Lose One's Life Is But To Lose The Present; And, Clearly, To Lose A Defiled, Worthless Present Is Not To Lose Much.

It Is Also Plausible That Those Movements With The Greatest Inner Contradiction And Between Profession And Practice - That Is To Say With A Strong Feeling Of Guilt - Are Likely To Be The Most Fervent In Imposing Their Faith On Others.

We All Have Private Ails. The Troublemakers Are They Who Need Public Cures For Their Private Ails.

The Desire To Belong Is Partly A Desire To Lose Oneself.

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.

There Is A Guilty Conscience Behind Every Brazen Word And Act And Behind Every Manifestation Of Self-righteousness.

If The Communists Win Europe And A Large Part Of The World, It Will Not Be Because They Know How To Stir Up Discontent Or How To Infect People With Hatred, But Because They Know How To Preach Hope.

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