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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.

-Eric Hoffer

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Imitation Is Often A

Eric Hoffer

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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.

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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.

The Superficiality Of Many Is A Result Of Deep Fears. It Takes Spare Time To Think Things Out; It Takes Free Time To Mature. People In A Hurry May Not Think Well Or Mature Well. The Next Best Is A State Of Perpetual Puerility.

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.

Lack Of Sensitivity Is Perhaps Basically An Unawareness Of Ourselves.

The Act Of Self-denial Seems To Confer On Us The Right To Be Harsh And Merciless Toward Others. 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 Breed Pride And Arrogance. The True Believer Is Apt To See Himself As One Of The Chosen, The Salt Of The Earth, A Prince Disguised In Meekness, Who Is Destined To Inherit This Earth And The Kingdom Of Heaven, Too. He Who Is Not Of His Faith Is Evil; He Who Will Not Listen Shall Perish.

In Every Passionate Pursuit, The Pursuit Counts More Than The Object Pursued.

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.

It Is The Acquisition Of Skills In Particular, Irrespective Of Their Utility, That Is Potent In Making Life Meaningful. Since Man Has No Inborn Skills, The Survival Of The Species Has Depended On The Ability To Acquire And Perfect Skills. Hence The Mastery Of Skills Is A Uniquely Human Activity And Yields Deep Satisfaction.

When People Are Bored It Is Primarily With Themselves.

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.

A Compilation Of What Outstanding People Said Or Wrote At The Age Of 20 Would Make A Collection Of Asinine Pronouncements.

The Conservatism Of A Religion - It's Orthodoxy - Is The Inert Coagulum Of A Once Highly Reactive Sap.

When The Weak Want To Give An Impression Of Strength They Hint Menacingly At Their Capacity For Evil. It Is By Its Promise Of A Sense Of Power That Evil Often Attracts The Weak.

I Could Never Figure Out Or Probably Did Not Take The Trouble To Figure Out What The Great Philosophical Problems Are About. The Momentous Statements I Come Across Are At Best A Storm In A Teacup. There Are Quite A Number Of People Who Have A Vested Interest In The Stuff, Make A Noble Living Out Of It, And They Conspire With One Another To Keep It Alive.

More Significant Than The Fact That Poets Write Abstrusely, Painters Paint Abstractly, And Composers Compose Unintelligible Music Is That People Should Admire What They Cannot Understand; Indeed, Admire That Which Has No Meaning Or Principle.

We Are More Ready To Try The Untried When What We Do Is Inconsequential. Hence The Remarkable Fact That Many Inventions Had Their Birth As Toys.

Faith In A Holy Cause Is To A Considerable Extent A Substitute For Lost Faith In Ourselves.

There Is No Alienation That A Little Power Will Not Cure.

No One Has A Right To Happiness.

It Is When Power Is Wedded To Chronic Fear That It Becomes Formidable.

To The Frustrated, Freedom From Responsibility Is More Attractive Than Freedom From Restraint.

We See Through Others Only When We See Through Ourselves.

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

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.

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

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

Take Away Hatred From Some People, And You Have Men Without Faith.

An Empty Head Is Not Really Empty; It Is Stuffed With Rubbish. Hence The Difficulty Of Forcing Anything Into An Empty Head.

[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.

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.

There Can Be No Freedom Without Freedom To Fail.

Those Who Are In Love With The Present Can Be Cruel And Corrupt But Not Genuinely Vicious. They Cannot Be Methodically And Consistently Ruthless.

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.

Propaganda ... Serves More To Justify Ourselves Than To Convince Others; And The More Reason We Have To Feel Guilty, The More Fervent Our Propaganda.

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

Somewhere Between The Angels And The French Lies The Rest Of Humanity.

The Necessary Has Never Been Man's Top Priority. The Passionate Pursuit Of The Nonessential And The Extravagant Is One Of The Chief Traits Of Human Uniqueness. Unlike Other Forms Of Life, Man's Greatest Exertions Are Made In The Pursuit Not Of Necessities But Of Superfluities.

Both The Revolutionary And The Creative Individual Are Perpetual Juveniles. The Revolutionary Does Not Grow Up Because He Cannot Grow, While The Creative Individual Cannot Grow Up Because He Keeps Growing.

People Who Bite The Hand That Feeds Them Usually Lick The Boot That Kicks Them.

First Something Is A Great Idea, Then It Becomes A Cause, Then It Becomes A Business And Finally It Becomes A Racket.

It Almost Seems That Nobody Can Hate America As Much As Native Americans. America Needs New Immigrants To Love And Cherish It.

Native American

He Who Has Nothing And Wants Something Is Less Frustrated Than He Who Has Something And Wants More.

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.

To Be Fully Alive Is To Feel That Everything Is Possible.

Men Of Thought Seldom Work Well Together, Whereas Between Men Of Action There Is Usually An Easy Camaraderie.

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

To The Excessively Fearful The Chief Characteristic Of Power Is Its Arbitrariness. Man Had To Gain Enormously In Confidence Before He Could Conceive An All-powerful God Who Obeys His Own Laws.

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

The Hardest Thing To Cope With Is Not Selfishness Or Vanity Or Deceitfulness, But Sheer Stupidity.

To Make Of Human Affairs A Coherent, Precise, Predictable Whole One Must Ignore Or Suppress Man As He Really Is. It Is By Eliminating Man From Their Equation That The Makers Of History Can Predict The Future, And The Writers Of History Can Give A Pattern To The Past.

Rudeness Is A Weak Imitation Of Strength.

To Spell Out The Obvious Is Often To Call It In Question.

There Are Similarities Between Absolute Power And Absolute Faith: A Demand For Absolute Obedience, A Readiness To Attempt The Impossible, A Bias For Simple Solutionsto Cut The Knot Rather Than Unravel It, The Viewing Of Compromise As Surrender. Both Absolute Power And Absolute Faith Are Instruments Of Dehumanization. Hence, Absolute Faith Corrupts As Absolutely As Absolute Power.

Social Improvement Is Attained More Readily By A Concern With The Quality Of Results Than With The Purity Of Motives.

The Ability To Get Along Without An Exceptional Leader Is The Mark Of Social Vigor.

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

Marriage Has For Women Many Equivalents Of Joining A Mass Movement. It Offers Them A New Purpose In Life, A New Future And A New Identity (a New Name). The Boredom Of Spinsters And Of Women Who Can No Longer Find Joy And Fulfillment In Marriage Stems From An Awareness Of A Barren, Spoiled Life. By Embracing A Holy Cause And Dedicating Their Energies And Substance To Its Advancement, They Find A New Life Full Of Purpose And Meaning.

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.

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.

The Autonomous Individual, Striving To Realize Himself And Prove His Worth, Has Created All That Is Great In Literature, Art, Music, Science And Technology. The Autonomous Individual, Also, When He Can Neither Realize Himself Nor Justify His Existence By His Own Efforts, Is A Breeding Call Of Frustration, And The Seed Of The Convulsions Which Shake Our World To Its Foundations.

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.

In A Modern Society People Can Live Without Hope Only When Kept Dazed And Out Of Breath By Incessant Hustling.

The Only Way To Predict The Future Is To Have Power To Shape The Future.

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

The Impulse To Think, To Philosophize And Spin Beauty And Brilliance Out Of Mind And Soul, Is Somehow The Offspring Of Resistance Of An Effort To Overcome An Apparently Insurmountable Obstacle. Hence Cultural Creativeness Is More Likely To Flourish In An Atmosphere Of Restriction, Of An Imposed Pattern Of Thought And Behavior, Than In One Of Total Freedom.

When We Do Not Do The One Thing We Ought To Do, We Have No Time For Anything Else - We Are The Busiest People In The World.

However Much We Guard Against It, We Tend To Shape Ourselves In The Image Others Have Of Us.

The Real Antichrist Is He Who Turns The Wine Of An Original Idea Into The Water Of Mediocrity.

Should Israel Perish, The Holocaust Will Be Upon Us.

In Human Affairs, The Best Stimulus For Running Ahead Is To Have Something We Must Run From.

By Circumstance And Perhaps Also By Inclination, I Think In Complete Intellectual Isolation. To Expect Others To Help Me Think Seems To Me Almost Like Expecting Them To Help Me Digest My Food.

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

Unity And Self-sacrifice, Of Themselves, Even When Fostered By The Most Noble Means, Produce A Facility For Hating. Even When Men League Themselves Mightily Together To Promote Tolerance And Peace On Earth, They Are Likely To Be Violently Intolerant Toward Those Not Of A Like Mind.

To Become Different From What We Are, We Must Have Some Awareness Of What We Are.

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.

We Used To Think That Revolutions Are The Cause Of Change. Actually It Is The Other Way Around: Change Prepares The Ground For Revolution.

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

The Compulsion To Take Ourselves Seriously Is In Inverse Proportion To Our Creative Capacity. When The Creative Flow Dries Up, All We Have Left Is Our Importance.

One Of The Surprising Privileges Of Intellectuals Is That They Are Free To Be Scandalously Asinine Without Harming Their Reputations.

Unlimited Opportunities Can Be As Potent A Cause Of Frustration As A Paucity Or Lack Of Opportunities.

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 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.

Our Originality Shows Itself Most Strikingly Not In What We Wholly Originate But In What We Do With That Which We Borrow From Others.

Whenever We Proclaim The Uniqueness Of A Religion , A Truth , A Leader, A Nation, A Race, A Part Or A Holy Cause, We Are Also Proclaiming Our Own Uniqueness.

The Leader Personifies The Certitude Of The Creed And The Defiance And Grandeur Of Power. He Articulates And Justifies The Resentment Damned Up In The Souls Of The Frustrated. He Kindles The Vision Of A Breath-taking Future So As To Justify The Sacrifice Of A Transitory Present. He Stages A World Of Make-believe So Indispensable For The Realization Of Self-sacrifice And United Action.

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

Creativity Is Discontent Translated Into Arts.

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.

...the Majority Of People Cannot Endure The Bareness And Futility Of Their Lives Unless They Have Some Ardent Dedication, Or Some Passionate Pursuit In Which They Can Lose Themselves.

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.

Though Dissenters Seem To Question Everything In Sight, They Are Actually Bundles Of Dusty Answers And Never Conceived A New Question. What Offends Us Most In The Literature Of Dissent Is The Lack Of Hesitation And Wonder.

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

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.

We Usually See Only The Things We Are Looking For- So Much So That We Sometimes See Them Where They Are Not.

You Rarely Find A Nonconformist Who Goes It Alone.

A Person's Creative Ability Decreases In Direct Proportion To The Degree To Which He Takes Himself Seriously.

Compassion Is The Antitoxin Of The Soul: Where There Is Compassion Even The Most Poisonous Impulses Remain Relatively Harmless.

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

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.

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.

The Trouble Is Not Chiefly That Our Universities Are Unfit For Students But That Many Present-day Students Are Unfit For Universities.

Good Writing , Like Gold , Combines Lustrous Lucidity With High Density. What This Means Is Good Writing Is Packed With Hints.

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

The Nature Of A Society Is Largely Determined By The Direction In Which Talent And Ambition Flow - By The Tilt Of The Social Landscape.

Good And Evil Grow Up Together And Are Bound In An Equilibrium That Cannot Be Sundered. The Most We Can Do Is Try To Tilt The Equilibrium Toward The Good.

A Low Capacity For Getting Along With Those Near Us Often Goes Hand In Hand With A High Receptivity To The Idea Of The Brotherhood Of Men.

Brotherhood Of Man

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

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

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.

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 Remarkable Thing Is That It Is The Crowded Life That Is Most Easily Remembered. A Life Full Of Turns, Achievements, Disappointments, Surprises, And Crises Is A Life Full Of Landmarks. The Empty Life Has Even Its Few Details Blurred, And Cannot Be Remembered With Certainty.

The Individual's Most Vital Need Is To Prove His Worth, And This Usually Means An Insatiable Hunger For Action. For It Is Only The Few Who Can Acquire A Sense Of Worth By Developing And Employing Their Capacities And Talents. The Majority Prove Their Worth By Keeping Busy.

Insatiable Hunger

Vehemence Is The Expression Of A Blind Effort To Support And Uphold Something That Can Never Stand On Its Own. Whether It Is Our Own Meaningless Self We Are Upholding, Or Some Doctrine Devoid Of Evidence, We Can Do It Only In A Frenzy Of Faith.

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

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

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

When Watching Men Of Power In Action It Must Be Always Kept In Mind That, Whether They Know It Or Not, Their Main Purpose Is The Elimination Or Neutralization Of The Independent Individual- The Independent Voter, Consumer, Worker, Owner, Thinker- And That Every Device They Employ Aims At Turning Men Into A Manipulable Animated Instrument Which Is Aristotle's Definition Of A Slave.

It Is Loneliness That Makes The Loudest Noise. This Is True Of Men As Of Dogs.

Free Men Are Aware Of The Imperfection Inherent In Human Affairs, And They Are Willing To Fight And Die For That Which Is Not Perfect. They Know That Basic Human Problems Can Have No Final Solutions, That Our Freedom, Justice, Equality, Etc. Are Far From Absolute, And That The Good Life Is Compounded Of Half Measures, Compromises, Lesser Evils, And Gropings Toward The Perfect. The Rejection Of Approximations And The Insistence On Absolutes Are The Manifestation Of A Nihilism That Loathes Freedom, Tolerance, And Equity.

Give People Pride And They'll Live On Bread And Water, Bless Their Exploiters, And Even Die For Them. Self-surrender Is A Transaction Of Barter: We Surrender Our Sense Of Human Dignity, Our Judgement, Or Moral And Aesthetic Sense For Pride. If There Is Pride In Being Free, We Are Ready To Die For Liberty. If There Is Pride To Be Derived From An Identification With A Leader, We Grovel In The Dust Before A Napoléon, Hitler Or Stalin And Are Ready To Die For Him. If There Is A Distinction In Suffering We Search For Martyrdom As For Hidden Treasure.

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.

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.

Ours Is A Golden Age Of Minorities. At No Time In The Past Have Dissident Minorities Felt So Much At Home And Had So Much Room To Throw Their Weight Around. They Speak And Act As If They Were "the People," And What They Abominate Most Is The Dissent Of The Majority.

To Believe That If Only We Had This Or That We Would Be Happy, Or To Pursue Any Excessive Desire, Diverts Us From Seeing That Happiness Depends On An Adequate Self.

Those Of Little Faith Are Of Little Hatred.

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.

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.

Many Of The Insights Of The Saint Stem From His Experience As A Sinner.

To Wrong Those We Hate Is To Add Fuel To Our Hatred. Conversely, To Treat An Enemy With Magnanimity Is To Blunt Our Hatred For Him.

Compassion Is The Antitoxin Of The Soul.

Far More Crucial Than What We Know Or Do Not Know Is What We Do Not Want To Know.

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

In Man's Life, The Absence Of An Essential Component Usually Leads To The Adoption Of A Substitute. The Substitute Is Usually Embraced With Vehemence And Extremism, For We Have To Convince Ourselves That What We Took As Second Choice Is The Best There Ever Was. Thus Blind Faith Is To A Considerable Extent A Substitute For The Lost Faith In Ourselves; Insatiable Desire A Substitute For Hope; Accumulation A Substitute For Growth; Fervent Hustling A Substitute For Purposeful Action; And Pride A Substitute For An Unattainable Self-respect.

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.

Nationalist Pride, Like Other Variants Of Pride, Can Be A Substitute For Self-respect.

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.

The Aspiration Toward Freedom Is The Most Essentially Human Of All Human Manifestations.

Our Sense Of Power Is More Vivid When We Break A Man's Spirit Than When We Win His Heart.

To The Creative Individual All Experience Is Seminal-all Events Are Equidistant From New Ideasand Insights.

The Fanatic Is Not Really A Stickler To Principle. He Embraces A Cause Not Primarily Because Of Its Justness Or Holiness But Because Of His Desperate Need For Something To Hold Onto.

Self-contempt, However Vague, Sharpens Our Eyes For The Imperfections Of Others. We Usually Strive To Reveal In Others The Blemishes We Hide In Ourselves.

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.

Mass Movements Do Not Usually Rise Until The Prevailing Order Has Been Discredited.

Practically All Writers And Artists Are Aware Of Their Destiny And See Themselves As Actors In A Fateful Drama. With Me, Nothing Is Momentous: Obscure Youth, Glorious Old Age, Fateful Coincidences - Nothing Really Matters. I Have Written A Number Of Good Sentences. I Have Kept Free Of Delusions. I Know I Am Going To Die Soon.

When We Are In Competition With Ourselves, And Match Our Todays Against Our Yesterdays, We Derive Encouragement From Past Misfortunes And Blemishes. Moreover, The Competition With Ourselves Leaves Unimpaired Our Benevolence Toward Our Fellow Men.

Love-making Is Radical, While Marriage Is Conservative.

There Are Many Who Have Grave Scruples About Deceiving But Think It As Nothing To Deceive Themselves.

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.

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.

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

It Is Part Of The Formidableness Of A Genuine Mass Movement That The Self-sacrifice It Promotes Includes Also A Sacrifice Of Some Of The Moral Sense, Which Cramps And Restrains Our Nature.

I Hang Onto My Prejudices, They Are The Testicles Of My Mind.

There Is A Powerful Craving In Most Of Us To See Ourselves As Instruments In The Hands Of Others And Thus Free Ourselves From The Responsibility For Acts Which Are Prompted By Our Own Questionable Inclinations And Impulses.

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.

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.

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.

Friendship Never Explain -- Your Friends Do Not Need It, And Your Enemies Will Not Believe It Anyway. A Real Friend Never Gets In Your Way, Unless You Happen To Be On The Way Down. A Friend Is Someone You Can Do Nothing With And Enjoy It. However Much We Guard Ourselves Against It, We Tend To Shape Ourselves In The Image Others Have Of Us. It Is Not So Much The Example Of Others We Imitate, As The Reflection Of Ourselves In Their Eyes And The Echo Of Ourselves In Their Words.

The Ratio Between Supervisory And Producing Personnel Is Always Highest Where The Intellectuals Are In Power. In A Communist Country It Takes Half The Population To Supervise The Other Half.

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 Judgment.

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

We Have To Adjust Ourselves, And Every Radical Adjustment Is A Crisis In Self-esteem: We Undergo A Test, We Have To Prove Ourselves.

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.

Faith In Humanity, In Posterity, In The Destiny Of One's Religion, Nation, Race, Party Or Family-what Is It But The Visualization Of That Eternal Something To Which We Attach The Self That Is About To Be Annihilated?

To Think Out A Problem Is Not Unlike Drawing A Caricature. You Have To Exaggerate The Salient Point And Leave Out That Which Is Not Typical. "to Illustrate A Principle ," Says Bagehot , "you Must Exaggerate Much And You Must Omit Much." As To The Quantity Of Absolute Truth In A Thought : It Seems To Me The More Comprehensive And Unobjectionable A Thought Becomes, The More Clumsy And Unexciting It Gets. I Like Half-truths Of A Certain Kind They Are Interesting And They Stimulate.

Originality Is Deliberate And Forced, And Partakes Of The Nature Of A Protest.

I Always Held My Flower In A Clenched Fist.

Retribution Often Means That We Eventually Do To Ourselves What We Have Done Unto Others.

How Terribly Hard And Almost Impossible It Is To Tell The Truth. More Than Anything Else, The Artist In Us Prevents Us From Telling Aught As It Really Happened. We Deal With The Truth As The Cook Deals With Meat And Vegetables.

It Is Startling To See How The Oppressed Almost Invariably Shape Themselves In The Image Of Their Hated Oppressors.

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.

To Know A Person's Religion We Need Not Listen To His Profession Of Faith But Must Find His Brand Of Intolerance.

The Uncompromising Attitude Is More Indicative Of An Inner Uncertainty Than A Deep Conviction. The Implacable Stand Is Directed More Against The Doubt Within Than The Assailant Without.

The Most Gifted Members Of The Human Species Are At Their Creative Best When They Cannot Have Their Way, And Must Compensate For What They Miss By Realizing And Cultivating Their Capacities And Talents.

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.

One Wonders Whether A Generation That Demands Instant Satisfaction Of All Its Needs And Instant Solution Of The World's Problems Will Produce Anything Of Lasting Value. Such A Generation, Even When Equipped With The Most Modern Technology, Will Be Essentially Primitive It Will Stand In Awe Of Nature, And Submit To The Tutelage Of Medicine Men.

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.

A Successful Social Technique Consists Perhaps In Finding Unobjectionable Means For Individual Self-assertion.

When People Are Free To Do As They Please, They Usually Imitate Each Other. Originality Is Deliberate And Forced, And Partakes Of The Nature Of A Protest. A Society Which Gives Unlimited Freedom To The Individual, More Often Than Not Attains A Disconcerting Sameness.

It Seems That When We Are Oppressed By The Knowledge Of Our Worthlessness We Do Not See Ourselves As Lower Than Some And Higher Than Others, But As Lower Than The Lowest Of Mankind. We Hate Then The Whole World, And We Would Pour Our Wrath Upon The Whole Of Creation.

It Is Always Safe To Assume That People Are More Subtle And Less Sensitive Than They Seem.

Absolute Faith Corrupts As Absolutely As Absolute Power.

One Is Not Quite Certain That Creativeness In The Arts, Literature, And Science Functions Best In An Environment Of Absolute Freedom. Chances Are That A Relatively Mild Tyranny Stimulates Creativeness.

We Cannot Win The Weak By Sharing Our Wealth With Them. They Feel Our Generosity As Oppression.

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.

A Grievance Is Most Poignant When Almost Redressed.

A Man Is Likely To Mind His Own Business When It Is Worth Minding. When It Is Not, He Takes His Mind Off His Own Meaningless Affairs By Minding Other People's Business.

What Are We When We Are Alone? Some, When They Are Alone, Cease To Exist.

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

To A Man Utterly Without A Sense Of Belonging, Mere Life Is All That Matters. It Is The Only Reality In An Eternity Of Nothingness, And He Clings To It With Shameless Despair.

We Can Never Really Be Prepared For That Which Is Wholly New. We Have To Adjust Ourselves, And Every Radical Adjustment Is A Crisis In Self-esteem: We Undergo A Test, We Have To Prove Ourselves. It Needs Subordinate Self-confidence To Face Drastic Change Without Inner Trembling.

...in The Shaping Of A Life, Chance And The Ability To Respond To Chance Are Everything.

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.

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.

The True Believer, No Matter How Rowdy And Violent His Acts, Is Basically An Obedient And Submissive Person.

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.

...the Differences Between The Conservative And The Radical Seem To Spring Mainly From Their Attitude Toward The Future. Fear Of The Future Causes Us To Lean Against And Cling To The Present, While Faith In The Future Renders Us Receptive To Change.

The Intellectuals And The Young, Booted And Spurred, Feel Themselves Born To Ride Us.

Rudeness Is The Weak Man's Limitation Of Strength.

The Game Of History Is Usually Played By The Best And The Worst Over The Heads Of The Majority In The Middle.

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George M. Cohan

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