And to assert defensively at the outset that he is happily married, the father of four children and the one-time adornment of his college boxing, track and tennis teams.
SYDNEY J. HARRISElitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.
More Sydney J. Harris Quotes
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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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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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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.
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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.
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Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.
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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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The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught.
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People decline invitations when they are “indisposed” physically, and I wish they would do likewise when they feel indisposed emotionally. A person has no more right to attend a party with a head full of venom than with a throat full of virus.
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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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And most of the failures in parent-child relationships, from my observation, begin when the child begins to acquire a mind and a will of its own, to make independent decisions and to question the omnipotence or the wisdom of the parent.
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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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We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we have stopped saying ‘It got lost,’ and say, ‘I lost it.’
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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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When we have “second thoughts” about something, our first thoughts don’t seem like thoughts at all – just feelings.
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Nobody really knows how smart or talented he is until he finds the incentives to use himself to the fullest. God has given us more than we know what to do with.
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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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It’s surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you’re not comfortable within yourself, you can’t be comfortable with others.
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Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.
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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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Happiness is a direction, not a place.
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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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Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.
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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 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 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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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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS