Take away grievances from some people and you remove their reasons for living; most of us are nourished by hope, but a considerable minority get psychic nutrition from their resentments, and would waste away purposelessly without them.
SYDNEY J. HARRISThere is no such thing as an “atrocity” in warfare that is greater than the atrocity of warfare itself.
More Sydney J. Harris Quotes
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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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Almost every man looks more so in a belted trench coat.
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The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.
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The best combination of parents consists of a father who is gentle beneath his firmness, and a mother who is firm beneath her gentleness.
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The main discomfort in being a middle-of-the-roader is that you get sideswiped by partisans going in both directions.
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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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Happiness is a direction, not a place.
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Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.
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It’s odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that English is the only major language in which “I” is capitalized; in many other languages “You” is capitalized and the “i” is lower case.” —
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The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.
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You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a realist he is preparing to do something that he is secretly ashamed of doing.
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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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When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’
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The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.
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The severest test of character is not so much the ability to keep a secret as it is, when the secret is finally out, to refrain from disclosing that you knew it all along.
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People who think they’re generous to a fault usually think that’s their only fault.
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A man will lay down his life for his friend but will not sacrifice his eardrums.
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The best thing you can give children, next to good habits, are good memories.
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Those who imagine that the world is against them have generally conspired to make it true.
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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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The founder of every creed from Jesus Christ to Karl Marx, would be appalled to return to earth and see what has been made of that creed, not by its enemies, but by its most devoted adherents.
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The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught.
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When we inform, we lead from strength; when we communicate, we lead from weakness-and it is precisely this confession of mortality that engages the ears, heads and hearts of those we want to enlist as allies in a common cause.
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Marriages we regard as the happiest are those in which each of the partners believes he or she got the best of it.
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The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face.
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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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS