“Exceptional intelligence, noble character and originality seem neither indispensable nor perhaps desirable.”

—  Eric Hoffer , book The True Believer

The main requirements seem to be: audacity and a joy in defiance; an iron will; a fanatical conviction that he is in possession of the one and only truth; faith in his destiny and luck; a capacity for passionate hatred; contempt for the present; a cunning estimate of human nature; a delight in symbols (spectacles and ceremonials); unbounded brazenness which finds expression in a disregard of consistency and fairness; a recognition that the innermost craving of a following is for communion and that there can never be too much of it; a capacity for winning and holding the utmost loyalty of a group of able lieutenants. This last faculty is one of the most essential and elusive.
Section 90
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice

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Eric Hoffer 240
American philosopher 1898–1983

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