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.
SYDNEY J. HARRISThe time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.
More Sydney J. Harris Quotes
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A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, his is also one who is permanently disappointed in the future.
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As the horsepower in modern automobiles steadily rises, the congestion of traffic steadily lowers the average possible speed of your car. This is known as Progress.
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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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Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.
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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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The world has always been betrayed by decent men with bad ideals.
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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 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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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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Time is love, above all else. It is the most precious commodity in the world and should be lavished on those we care most about.
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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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There’s no point in burying a hatchet if you’re going to put up a marker on the site.
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We can often endure an extra pound of pain far more easily than we can suffer the withdrawal of an ounce of accustomed pleasure.
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Many people feel “guilty” about things they shouldn’t feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.
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Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.
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There is no such thing as an “atrocity” in warfare that is greater than the atrocity of warfare itself.
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And nobody is more aware of this difference (although unconsciously) than a child. Only an authentic person can evoke a good response in the core of the other person; only person is resonant to person.
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Skepticism is not an end in itself; it is a tool for the discovery of truths.
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Man’s unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
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It is not only useless, it is harmful, to believe in oneself until one truly knows oneself. And to know oneself means to accept our moments of insanity, of eccentricity, of childishness and blindness.
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A winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others; a loser wants to be considered an expert by others before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.
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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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Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.
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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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Being yourself is not remaining what you were, or being satisfied with what you are. It is the point of departure and far from the goal.
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The loner may be respected, but he is always resented by his colleagues, for he seems to be passing a critical judgment on them, when he may be simply making a limiting statement about himself.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS