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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.

-Eric Hoffer

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The Act Of Self-denial

Eric Hoffer

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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.

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

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The Americans Are Poor Haters In International Affairs Because Of Their Innate Feeling Of Superiority Over All Foreigners. An American's Hatred For A Fellow American Is Far More Virulent Than Any Antipathy He Can Work Up Against Foreigners. Should Americans Begin To Hate Foreigners Wholeheartedly, It Will Be An Indication That They Have Lost Confidence In Their Own Way Of Life.

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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.

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

A Dissenting Minority Feels Free Only When It Can Impose Its Will On The Majority: What It Abominates Most Is The Dissent Of The Majority.

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

There Is Apparently No Surer Way Of Turning A Thing Into Its Opposite Than By Exaggerating It

The End Comes When We No Longer Talk With Ourselves. It Is The End Of Genuine Thinking And The Beginning Of The Final Loneliness. The Remarkable Thing Is That The Cessation Of The Inner Dialogue Marks Also The End Of Our Concern With The World Around Us. It Is As If We Noted The World And Think About It Only When We Have To Report It To Ourselves.

America Is Still The Best Country For The Common Man -- White Or Black ... If He Can't Make It Here He Won't Make It Anywhere Else.

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.

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

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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.

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

Misrepresentation

The Original Insight Is Most Likely To Come When Elements Stored In Different Compartments Of The Mind Drift Into The Open, Jostle One Another, And Now And Then Form New Combinations.

The Taint Inherent In Absolute Power Is Not Its Inhumanity But Its Antihumanity.

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.

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

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.

People Unfit For Freedom - Who Cannot Do Much With It - Are Hungry For Power. The Desire For Freedom Is An Attribute Of A "have" Type Of Self. It Says: Leave Me Alone And I Shall Grow, Learn, And Realize My Capacities. The Desire For Power Is Basically An Attribute Of A "have Not" Type Of Self.

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Sensuality Reconciles Us With The Human Race. The Misanthropy Of The Old Is Due In Large Part To The Fading Of The Magic Glow Of Desire.

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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.

It Is The Fate Of Every Great Achievement To Be Pounced Upon By Pedants And Imitators Who Drain It Of Life And Turn It Into An Orthodoxy Which Stifles All Stirrings Of Originality.

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.

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.

Radicalism Itself Ceases To Be Radical When Absorbed Mainly In Preserving Its Control Over A Society Or An Economy.

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Self Confidence

The Well Adjusted Make Poor Prophets. A Pleasant Existence Blinds Us To The Possibilities Of Drastic Change. We Cling To What We Call Our Common Sense, Our Practical Point Of View. Actually, These Are Names For An All-absorbing Familiarity With Things As They Are. . . . Thus It Happens That When The Times Become Unhinged, It Is The Practical People Who Are Caught Unaware . . . Still Clinging To Things That No Longer Exist.

When You Automate An Industry You Modernize It; When You Automate A Life You Primitivize It.

Sometimes We Feel The Loss Of A Prejudice As A Loss Of Vigor.

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

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

Self-righteousness Is A Manifestation Of Self-contempt.

I Always Held My Flower In A Clenched Fist.

Fair Play With Others Is Primarily The Practice Of Not Blaming Them For Anything That Is Wrong With Us. We Tend To Rub Our Guilty Conscience Against Others The Way We Wipe Dirty Fingers On A Rag. This Is As Evil A Misuse Of Others As The Practice Of Exploitation.

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

Children, Savages And True Believers Remember Far Less What They Have Seen Than What They Have Heard.

Our Achievements Speak For Themselves. What We Have To Keep Track Of Are Our Failures, Discouragements And Doubts. We Tend To Forget The Past Difficulties, The Many False Starts, And The Painful Groping. We See Our Past Achievements As The End Results Of A Clean Forward Thrust, And Our Present Difficulties As Signs Of Decline And Decay.

To Grow Old Is To Grow Common. Old Age Equalizes -- We Are Aware That What Is Happening To Us Has Happened To Untold Numbers From The Beginning Of Time. When We Are Young We Act As If We Were The First Young People In The World.

Faith Is Primarily A Process Of Identification; The Process By Which The Individual Ceases To Be Himself And Becomes Part Of Something Eternal.

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.

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.

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

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

No One Is Truly Literate Who Cannot Read His Own Heart.

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.

All Leaders Strive To Turn Their Followers Into Children.

We Are Least Open To Precise Knowledge Concerning The Things We Are Most Vehement About.

When We Debunk A Fanatical Faith Or Prejudice, We Do Not Strike At The Root Of Fanaticism. We Merely Prevent Its Leaking Out At A Certain Point, With The Likely Result That It Will Leak Out At Some Other Point.

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

However Different The Holy Causes People Die For, They Perhaps Die Basically For The Same Thing.

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

There Are Many Who Find A Good Alibi Far More Attractive Than An Achievement. For An Achievement Does Not Settle Anything Permanently. We Still Have To Prove Our Worth Anew Each Day; We Have To Prove That We Are As Good Today As We Were Yesterday. But When We Have A Valid Alibi For Not Achieving Anything We Are Fixed, So To Speak, For Life.

Judgment Consists Not In Seeing Through Deceptions And Evil Intentions, But In Being Able To Awaken The Decency Dormant In Every Person.

Laughter To Begin With Was Probably Glee At The Misfortunes Of Others. The Baring Of The Teeth In Laughter Hints At Its Savage Ancestry. Animals Have No Malice, Hence Also No Laughter. They Never Savor The Sudden Glory Of Schadenfreude. It Was Its Infectious Quality That Made Of Laughter A Medium Of Mutuality.

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

Anger Is A Prelude To Courage.

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.

It Is Our Talents Rusting Unused Within Us That Secrete The Poison Of Self-doubt Into Our Bloodstream.

The Main Effect Of A Real Revolution Is Perhaps That It Sweeps Away Those Who Do Not Know How To Wish, And Brings To The Front Men With Insatiable Appetites For Action, Power And All That The World Has To Offer.

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

Add A Few Drops Of Venom To A Half Truth And You Have An Absolute Truth.

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.

Creativity Is Discontent Translated Into Arts.

Man Was Nature's Mistake She Neglected To Finish Him And She Has Never Ceased Paying For Her Mistake.

The Link Between Ideas And Action Is Rarely Direct. There Is Almost Always An Intermediate Step In Which The Idea Is Overcome.

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

Nonconformists Travel As A Rule In Bunches. You Rarely Find A Nonconformist Who Goes It Alone. And Woe To Him Inside A Nonconformist Clique Who Does Not Conform With Nonconformity.

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.

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.

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.

Fear Comes From Uncertainty. When We Are Absolutely Certain, Whether Of Our Worth Or Worthlessness, We Are Almost Impervious To Fear. Thus A Feeling Of Utter Unworthiness Can Be A Source Of Courage.

To Learn You Need A Certain Degree Of Confidence, Not Too Much And Not Too Little. If You Have Too Little Confidence, You Will Think You Can't Learn. If You Have Too Much, You Will Think You Don't Have To Learn.

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

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

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

Every Successful Person Has Had Failures But Repeated Failure Is No Guarantee Of Eventual Success

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.

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

The Proselytizing Fanatic Strengthens His Own Faith By Converting Others. The Creed Whose Legitimacy Is Most Easily Challenged Is Likely To Develop The Strongest Proselytizing Impulse.

Woe To Him Inside A Non-conformist Clique Who Does Not Conform To Non-conformity.

Where There Is The Necessary Technical Skill To Move Mountains, There Is No Need For The Faith That Moves Mountains.

A Soul That Is Reluctant To Share Does Not As A Rule Have Much Of Its Own. Miserliness Is Here A Symptom Of Meagerness.

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 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

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

It Has Often Been Said That Power Corrupts. But It Is Perhaps Equally Important To Realize That Weakness, Too, Corrupts. Power Corrupts The Few, While Weakness Corrupts The Many. Hatred, Malice, Rudeness, Intolerance, And Suspicion Are The Faults Of Weakness. The Resentment Of The Weak Does Not Spring From Any Injustice Done To Them But From Their Sense Of Inadequacy And Impotence. We Cannot Win The Weak By Sharing Our Wealth With Them. They Feel Our Generosity As Oppression.

We Know That Words Cannot Move Mountains, But They Can Move The Multitude; And Men Are More Ready To Fight And Die For A Word Than For Anything Else. Words Shape Thought, Stir Feeling, And Beget Action; They Kill And Revive, Corrupt And Cure. The "men-of-words"- Priests, Prophets, Intellectuals- Have Played A More Decisive Role In History Than Military Leaders, Statesmen, And Businessmen.

There Is A Grandeur In The Uniformity Of The Mass. When A Fashion, A Dance, A Song, A Slogan Or A Joke Sweeps Like Wildfire From One End Of The Continent To The Other, And A Hundred Million People Roar With Laughter, Sway Their Bodies In Unison, Hum One Song Or Break Forth In Anger And Denunciation, There Is The Overpowering Feeling That In This Country We Have Come Nearer The Brotherhood Of Man Than Ever Before.

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

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.

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

Quite Often The Social Doctors Become Part Of The Disease.

All Mass Movements Strive, Therefore, To Interpose A Fact-proof Screen Between The Faithful And The Realities Of The World. They Do This By Claiming That The Ultimate And Absolute Truth Is Already Embodied In Their Doctrine And That There Is No Truth Nor Certitude Outside It. The Facts On Which The True Believer Bases His Conclusions Must Not Be Derived From His Experience Or Observation But From Holy Writ.

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.

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.

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

There Is Perhaps No Better Way Of Measuring The Natural Endowment Of A Soul Than By Its Ability To Transmute Dissatisfaction Into A Creative Impulse.

There Are Many Who Find A Good Alibi Far More Attractive Than An Achievement.

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.

The Less Justified A Man Is In Claiming Excellence For His Own Self, The More Ready Is He To Claim All Excellence For His Nation, His Religion, His Race Or His Holy Cause.

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

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.

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

To Some, Freedom Means The Opportunity To Do What They Want To Do; To Most It Means Not To Do What They Do Not Want To Do. It Is Perhaps True That Those Who Can Grow Will Feel Free Under Any Condition.

The Burning Conviction That We Have A Holy Duty Toward Others Is Often A Way Of Attaching Our Drowning Selves To A Passing Raft.

The Real Persuaders Are Our Appetites, Our Fears And Above All Our Vanity. The Skillful Propagandist Stirs And Coaches These Internal Persuaders.

It Is Compassion Rather Than The Principle Of Justice Which Can Guard Us Against Being Unjust To Our Fellow Men.

Failure In The Management Of Practical Affairs Seems To Be A Qualification For Success In The Management Of Public Affairs.

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

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.

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.

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 In A Hurry Cannot Think, Cannot Grow, Nor Can They Decay. They Are Preserved In A State Of Perpetual Puerility.

Even In Slight Things The Experience Of The New Is Rarely Without Some Stirring Of Foreboding.

Rudeness Luxuriates In The Absence Of Self-respect.

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

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

We Cannot Hate Those Who We Despise.

A Just Society Must Strive With All Its Might To Right Wrongs Even If Righting Wrongs Is A Highly Perilous Undertaking. But If It Is To Survive, A Just Society Must Be Strong And Resolute Enough To Deal Swiftly And Relentlessly With Those Who Would Mistake Its Good Will For Weakness.

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 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.

Language Was Invented To Ask Questions.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

There Is No Reason Why Humanity Cannot Be Served Equally By Weighty And Trivial Motives.

Youth Itself Is A Talent, A Perishable Talent.

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

It Needs Some Intelligence To Be Truly Selfish. The Unintelligent Can Only Be Self-righteous.

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

The Unpredictability Inherent In Human Affairs Is Due Largely To The Fact That The By-products Of A Human Process Are More Fateful Than The Product.

A Sublime Religion Inevitably Generates A Strong Feeling Of Guilt. There Is An Unavoidable Contrast Between Loftiness Of Profession And Imperfection Of Practice. And, As One Would Expect, The Feeling Of Guilt Promotes Hate And Brazenness. Thus It Seems That The More Sublime The Faith The More Virulent The Hatred It Breeds.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

To Be Aware How Fruitful The Playful Mood Can Be Is To Be Immune To The Propaganda Of The Alienated, Which Extols Resentment As A Fuel Of Achievement.

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.

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

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

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