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The Chemistry Of Dissatisfaction Is As The Chemistry Of Some Marvelously Potent Tar. In It Are The Building Stones Of Explosives, Stimulants, Poisons, Opiates, Perfumes And Stenches.

-Eric Hoffer

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The Chemistry Of Dissatisfaction

Eric Hoffer

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The Chemistry Of Dissatisfaction Is As The Chemistry Of Some Marvelously Potent Tar. In It Are The Building Stones Of Explosives, Stimulants, Poisons, Opiates, Perfumes And Stenches.

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Animals Often Strike Us As Passionate Machines.

The Real "haves" Are They Who Can Acquire Freedom, Self-confidence, And Even Riches Without Depriving Others Of Them. They Acquire All Of These By Developing And Applying Their Potentialities. On The Other Hand, The Real "have Nots" Are They Who Cannot Have Aught Except By Depriving Others Of It. They Can Feel Free Only By Diminishing The Freedom Of Others, Self-confident By Spreading Fear And Dependence Among Others, And Rich By Making Others Poor.

Self Confidence

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

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.

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.

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

The Sick In Soul Insist That It Is Humanity That Is Sick, And They Are The Surgeons To Operate On It. They Want To Turn The World Into A Sickroom. And Once They Get Humanity Strapped To The Operating Table, They Operate On It With An Ax.

Unless A Man Has The Talents To Make Something Of Himself, Freedom Is An Irksome Burden. We Join A Mass Movement To Escape From Individual Responsibility, Or, In The Words Of An Ardent Young Nazi, To Be Free From Freedom. It Was Not Sheer Hypocrisy When The Rank-and-file Nazis Declared Themselves Not Guilty Of All The Enormities They Had Committed. They Considered Themselves Cheated And Maligned When Made To Shoulder Responsibility For Obeying Orders. Had They Not Joined The Nazi Movement In Order To Be Free From Responsibility?

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

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.

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 A Totalitarian Regime Inside Every One Of Us. We Are Ruled By A Ruthless Politburo Which Sets Our Norms And Drives Us From One Five-year Plan To Another. The Autonomous Individual Who Has To Justify His Existence By His Own Efforts Is In Eternal Bondage To Himself.

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.

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.

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.

All Leaders Strive To Turn Their Followers Into Children.

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

Wordiness Is A Sickness Of American Writing. Too Many Words Dilute And Blur Ideas.

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

We Often Use Strong Language Not To Express A Powerful Emotion But To Evoke It In Us.

A Heresy Can Spring Only From A System That Is In Full Vigor.

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

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

It Is Easier To Hate An Enemy With Much Good In Him Than One Who Is All Bad. We Cannot Hate Those We Despise.

The Individual Who Has To Justify His Existence By His Own Efforts Is In Eternal Bondage To Himself.

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.

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.

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

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.

In Running Away From Ourselves We Either Fall On Our Neighbor's Shoulder Or Fly At His Throat.

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

When Our Individual Interests And Prospects Do Not Seem Worth Living For, We Are In Desperate Need For Something Apart From Us To Live For. All Forms Of Dedication, Devotion, Loyalty And Self-surrender Are In Essence A Desperate Clinging To Something Which Might Give Worth And Meaning To Our Futile, Spoiled Lives.

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.

The Vigor Of A Mass Movement Stems From The Propensity Of Its Followers For United Action And Self-sacrifice. When We Ascribe The Success Of A Movement To Its Faith, Doctrine, Propaganda, Leadership, Ruthlessness And So On, We Are But Referring To Instruments Of Unification And To Means Used To Inculcate A Readiness For Self-sacrifice. It Is Perhaps Impossible To Understand The Nature Of A Mass Movement Unless It Is Recognized That Their Chief Preoccupation Is To Foster, Perfect And Perpetuate A Facility For United Action And Self-sacrifice.

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 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 Grubbing For Necessities Man Is Still An Animal. He Becomes Uniquely Human When He Reaches Out For The Superfluous And Extravagant.

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

It Is A Sign Of Creeping Inner Death When We Can No Longer Praise The Living.

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.

Should Americans Begin To Hate Foreigners Wholeheartedly, It Will Be An Indication That They Have Lost Confidence In Their Own Way Of Life.

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.

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.

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 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.

The Fear Of Becoming A 'has-been' Keeps Some People From Becoming Anything.

The Ideal Of Self-advancement Which The Civilizing West Offers To Backward Populations Brings With It The Plague Of Individual Frustration. All The Advantages Brought By The West Are Ineffectual Substitutes For The Sheltering And Soothing Anonymity Of Communal Existence.

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

Nature Has No Compassion. Nature Accepts No Excuses And The Only Punishment It Knows Is Death.

There Is Nothing More Explosive Than A Skilled Population Condemned To Inaction. Such A Population Is Likely To Become A Hotbed Of Extremism And Intolerance, And Be Receptive To Any Proselytizing Ideology, However Absurd And Vicious, Which Promises Vast Action.

...that Genius Is A Rare Exception (:) It's Not True. Talent And Genius Have Been Wasted On Enormous Scale Throughout Our History; This Is All I Know For Sure.

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

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.

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.

Anger Is A Prelude To Courage.

There Is A Perfect Ant, A Perfect Bee, But Man Is Perpetually Unfinished...moreover, The Incurable Unfinishedness Keeps Man Perpetually Immature, Perpetually Capable Of Learning And Growing.

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

Rudeness Luxuriates In The Absence Of Self-respect.

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."

Spiritual Stagnation Ensues When Man's Environment Becomes Unpredictable Or When His Inner Life Is Made Wholly Predictable.

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.

Help Your Sister's Boat Across The Water, And Yours Too Will Reach The Other Side. Kindness Can Become Its Own Motive. We Are Made Kind By Being Kind.

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 Are Ready To Die For An Opinion But Not For A Fact

There Can Be No Freedom Without Freedom To Fail.

There Is Always A Chance That He Who Sets Himself Up As His Brother's Keeper Will End Up By Being His Jail-keeper.

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

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

We Find It Hard To Apply The Knowledge Of Ourselves To Our Judgment Of Others. The Fact That We Are Never Of One Kind, That We Never Love Without Reservations And Never Hate With All Our Being Cannot Prevent Us From Seeing Others As Wholly Black Or White.

They Who Lack Talent Expect Things To Happen Without Effort. They Ascribe Failure To A Lack Of Inspiration Or Ability, Or To Misfortune, Rather Than To Insufficient Application. At The Core Of Every True Talent There Is An Awareness Of The Difficulties Inherent In Any Achievement, And The Confidence That By Persistence And Patience Something Worthwhile Will Be Realized. Thus Talent Is A Species Of Vigor.

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.

The Urge To Escape Our Real Self Is Also An Urge To Escape The Rational And The Obvious.

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

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

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

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

It Is The Malady Of Our Age That The Young Are So Busy Teaching Us That They Have No Time Left To Learn.

It Is By Its Promise Of A Sense Of Power That Evil Often Attracts The Weak.

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

It Is The Around-the-corner Brand Of Hope That Prompts People To Action, While The Distant Hope Acts As An Opiate.

It Is The Awareness Of Unfulfilled Desires Which Gives A Nation The Feeling That It Has A Mission And A Destiny.

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.

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

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.

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.

By All Odds, Earliest Man, So Naked To The Elements And To Deadly Enemies, Should Have Existed In A State Of Constant Shock. We Find Him Instead The Only Lighthearted Being In A Deadly Serious Universe.... He Alone, With Childish Carelessness, Tinkered And Played, And Exerted Himself More In The Pursuit Of Superfluities Than Of Necessities. Yet The Tinkering And Playing, And The Fascination With The Nonessential, Were A Chief Source Of The Inventiveness Which Enabled Man To Prevail Over Better-equipped And More-purposeful Animals.

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

Absolute Faith Corrupts As Absolutely As Absolute Power.

The Effectiveness Of A Doctrine Does Not Come From Its Meaning But From Its Certitude. No Doctrine However Profound And Sublime Will Be Effective Unless It Is Presented As The Embodiment Of The One And Only Truth

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.

For Many People, An Excuse Is Better Than An Achievement Because An Achievement, No Matter How Great, Leaves You Having To Prove Yourself Again In The Future; But An Excuse Can Last For Life.

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

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

What Merit There Is In My Thinking Is Derived From Two Peculiarities: (1) My Inability To Be Familiar With Anything. I Simply Can't Take Things For Granted. (2) My Endless Patience. I Assume That The Only Way To Find An Answer Is To Hang On Long Enough And Keep Groping.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

There Is No Reason Why The Profoundest Thoughts Should Not Make Easy And Exciting Reading. A Profound Thought Is An Exciting Thing As Exciting As A Detective's Deductions Or Hunches. The Simpler The Words In Which A Thought Is Expressed The More Stimulating Its Effect.

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.

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

To The Old, The New Is Usually Bad News.

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

Absolute Power Turns Its Possessors Not Into A God But An Anti-god. For God Turned Clay Into Men, While The Absolute Despot Turns Men Into Clay.

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.

There Is No Loneliness Greater Than The Loneliness Of A Failure. The Failure Is A Stranger In His Own House.

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.

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.

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

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

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

What Pascal Said Of An Effective Religion Is True Of Any Effective Doctrine: It Must Be "contrary To Nature, To Common Sense And To Pleasure.

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

There Is A Time When The Word "eventually" Has The Soothing Effect Of A Promise, And A Time When The Word Evokes In Us Bitterness And Scorn.

Absolute Power Corrupts Even When Exercised For Humane Purposes. The Benevolent Despot Who Sees Himself As A Shepherd Of The People Still Demands From Others The Submissiveness Of Sheep. The Taint Inherent In Absolute Power Is Not Its Inhumanity But Its Anti-humanity.

All Mass Movements Avail Themselves Of Action As A Means Of Unification. The Conflicts A Mass Movement Seeks And Incites Serve Not Only To Down Its Enemies But Also To Strip Its Followers Of Their Distinct Individuality And Render Them More Soluble In The Collective Medium.

It Still Holds True That Man Is Most Uniquely Human When He Turns Obstacles Into Opportunities.

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

Every Extreme Attitude Is A Fight From The Self.

Thought Is A Process Of Exaggeration. The Refusal To Exaggerate Is Not Infrequently An Alibi For The Disinclination To Think Or Praise.

Exaggeration Is

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 Weak Are Not A Noble Breed. Their Sublime Deeds Of Faith, Daring, And Self-sacrifice Usually Spring From Questionable Motives. The Weak Hate Not Wickedness But Weakness; And One Instance Of Their Hatred Of Weakness Is Hatred Of Self. All The Passionate Pursuits Of The Weak Are In Some Degree A Striving To Escape, Blur, Or Disguise An Unwanted Self. It Is A Striving Shot Through With Malice, Envy, Self-deception, And A Host Of Petty Impulses; Yet It Often Culminates In Superb Achievements.

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

Fair Play Is Primarily Not Blaming Others For Anything That Is Wrong With Us.

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.

It Is Futile To Judge A Kind Deed By Its Motives. Kindness Can Become Its Own Motive. We Are Made Kind By Being Kind.

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.

The Self-despisers Are Less Intent On Their Own Increase Than On The Diminution Of Others. Where Self-esteem Is Unobtainable, Envy Takes The Place Of Greed.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Creativity Is Discontent Translated Into Arts.

The World Leans On Us. When We Sag, The Whole World Seems To Droop.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Creativity Is The Ability To Introduce Order Into The Randomness Of Nature.

To Most Of Us Nothing Is So Invisible As An Unpleasant Truth. Though It Is Held Before Our Eyes, Pushed Under Our Noses, Rammed Down Our Throats- We Know It Not.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Some People Have No Original Ideas Because They Do Not Think Well Enough Of Themselves To Consider Their Ideas Worth Noticing And Developing.

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.

Dissipation Is A Form Of Self-sacrifice.

The Readiness To Praise Others Indicates A Desire For Excellence And Perhaps An Ability To Realize It.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

A Society That Refuses To Strive For Superfluities Is Likely To End Up Lacking In Necessities.

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

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

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

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.

Excesses Are Essentially Gestures. It Is Easy To Be Extremely Cruel, Magnanimous, Humble Or Self-sacrificing When We See Ourselves As Actors In A Performance.

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 Takes A Vice To Check A Vice, And Virtue Is The By-product Of A Stalemate Between Opposite Vices.

You Can Discover What Your Enemy Fears Most By Observing The Means He Uses To Frighten You.

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.

Capitalism Is At Its Liberating Best In A Noncapitalist Environment. The Crypto-businessman Is The True Revolutionary In A Communist Country.

The Search For Happiness Is One Of The Chief Sources Of Unhappiness.

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

Lack Of Sensitivity Is Perhaps Basically An Unawareness Of 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 Sense Of Inferiority Inherent In The Act Of Imitation Breeds Resentment. The Impulse Of The Imitators Is To Overcome The Model They Imitate.

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

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.

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