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161 " Where power is not joined with faith in the future, it is used mainly to ward off the new and preserve the status quo. "
― Eric Hoffer , The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
162 " 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. "
163 " Action is a unifier. "
164 " The leader has to be practical and a realist yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. "
― Eric Hoffer
165 " One of the rules that emerges from a consideration of the factors that promote self-sacrifice is that we are less ready to die for what we have or are than for what we wish to have and to be. It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have “something worth fighting for,” they do not feel like fighting. People who live full, worthwhile lives are not usually ready to die for their own interests nor for their country nor for a holy cause. "
166 " The indispensability of play-acting in the grim business of dying and killing is particularly evident in the case of armies. Their uniforms, flags, emblems, parades, music, and elaborate etiquette and ritual are designed to separate the soldier from his flesh-and-blood self and mask the overwhelming reality of life and death. "
167 " The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it.Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese--and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. "
168 " If anything ail a man,” says Thoreau, “so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even … he forthwith sets about reforming—the world.”3 "
169 " They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society. The frustrated, oppressed by their shortcomings, blame their failure on existing restraints. Actually their innermost desire is for an end to the “free for all.” They want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society. 29 "
170 " 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. "
171 " We usually see only the things we are looking for- so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not. "
172 " The intellectual cannot operate at room temperature. "
― Eric Hoffer , First Things, Last Things
173 " The decline of handicrafts in modern times is perhaps one of the causes for the rise of frustration "
174 " Misery does not automatically generate discontent, nor is the intensity of discontent directly proportionate to the degree of misery. [...] A grievance is most poignant when almost redressed. […] 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. "
175 " There are no chaste minds. Minds copulate wherever they meet. "
176 " It has been often 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 fruits of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of their inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression. "
― Eric Hoffer , The Ordeal of Change
177 " 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. 104 "
― Eric Hoffer , Reflections on the Human Condition
178 " إن اعتقادنا أن لدينا واجبًا مقدسًا إزاء الآخرين كثيرًا ما يكون طوق النجاة الذي نحاول بواسطته إنقاذ أنفسنا من الغرق، وعندما نمدّ يدنا نحو الآخر فنحن في حقيقة الأمر نبحث عن يد تنتشلنا. "
179 " People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them. 142 "
180 " though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. "