Marriages we regard as the happiest are those in which each of the partners believes he or she got the best of it.
SYDNEY J. HARRISIf you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, but the perpetual human predicament is that the answer soon poses its own problems.
More Sydney J. Harris Quotes
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Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance.
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If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.
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Many people know how to work hard; many others know how to play well; but the rarest talent in the world is the ability to introduce elements of playfulness into work, and to put some constructive labor into our leisure.
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Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, ‘Why not?’ and the other, ‘Why bother?’
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There are always too many Democratic congressmen, too many Republican congressmen, and never enough U.S. congressmen.
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Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.
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A ‘penchant for telling the truth’ can cripple a candidates chances faster than being caught in flagrante delicto with the governor’s wife.
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A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.
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Almost every man looks more so in a belted trench coat.
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The best thing you can give children, next to good habits, are good memories.
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If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
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Every morning I take out my bankbook, stare at it, shudder – and turn quickly to my typewriter.
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People who think they’re generous to a fault usually think that’s their only fault.
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The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
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There’s no point in burying a hatchet if you’re going to put up a marker on the site.
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Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves – so how can we know anyone else?
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What is much harder to handle is the sense that you have to live up to the mark someone else has set for you. The grades become too important, the competition too frantic, the fear of disappointing those who believe in you turns into an overwhelming nightmare.
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The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.
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Patriotism is proud of a country’s virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues.
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Making out an invitation list for a party brings out the worst in everyone. It is then that our most ruthless estimates of the people we know come into play.
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Real loneliness consists not in being alone, but in being with the wrong person, in the suffocating darkness of a room in which no deep communication is possible.
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The public examination of homosexuality in our contemporary life is still so coated with distasteful moral connotations that even a reviewer is bound to wonder uneasily why he was selected to evaluate a book on the subject.
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Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith.
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Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.
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A loser says that’s the way it’s always been done. A winner says there ought to be a better way.
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When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’
SYDNEY J. HARRIS