Eric Hoffer Quotes on Independence
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The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.
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The chief difference between me and others is that I have plenty of time - not only because I am without a multitude of responsibilities and without daily tasks, which demand attention: But also because I am basically without ambition. Neither the present nor the future has claims on me.
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To think for oneself is not only, as Gide said, counterrevolutionary but also apostasy and, at certain times, treason.
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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.
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Total innovation is a flight from comparison and also from imitation. Those who discover things for themselves and express them in their own way are not overly bothered by the fact that others have already discovered these things - have even discovered them over and over again - and have expressed what they found in all manner of ways.
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The ability to get along without an exceptional leader is the mark of social vigor.
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When we leave people on their own, we are delivering them into the hands of a ruthless taskmaster from whose bondage there is no escape. The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.