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About this quote

What does it mean?
When personal life feels meaningless, people desperately cling to external causes for worth.
In plain terms
If your life feels pointless, you look outside to find meaning.
What can you take from it?
External devotion often fills internal voids.

Where it applies

  • crisis
  • boredom
  • loss of career

Putting it to work

  • find internal purpose
  • build self-worth
  • assess needs

Questions to consider

  • Where does meaning come from?
  • Why do we surrender ourselves?

Another view

Not all dedication comes from desperation.

More from Eric Hoffer

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  2. The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of…

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  3. 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…

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