Honesty consists of the unwillingness to lie to others; maturity, which is equally hard to attain, consists of the unwillingness to lie to oneself.
SYDNEY J. HARRISThe real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.
More Sydney J. Harris Quotes
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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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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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Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
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Almost every man looks more so in a belted trench coat.
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The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s leisure.
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By the time a man asks you for advice, he has generally made up his mind what he wants to do, and is looking for confirmation rather than counseling.
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More trouble is caused in this world by indiscreet answers than by indiscreet questions.
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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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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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When we have “second thoughts” about something, our first thoughts don’t seem like thoughts at all – just feelings.
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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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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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If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
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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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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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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.
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Never let your fears be the boundaries of your dreams. 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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Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
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No one should pay attention to a man delivering a lecture or a sermon on his “philosophy of life” until we know exactly how he treats his wife, his children, his neighbors, his friends, his subordinates and his enemies.
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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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Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance.
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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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We evaluate others with a Godlike justice, but we want them to evaluate us with a Godlike compassion.
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A university is not, primarily, a place in which to learn how to make a living; it is a place in which to learn how to be more fully a human being, how to draw upon one’s resources, how to discipline the mind and expand the imagination; how to make some sense out of the big world we will shortly be thrown into.
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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