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.
SYDNEY J. HARRISWhen we have “second thoughts” about something, our first thoughts don’t seem like thoughts at all – just feelings.
More Sydney J. Harris Quotes
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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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We truly possess only what we are able to renounce; otherwise, we are simply possessed by our possessions.
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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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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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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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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 winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.
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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 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 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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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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More trouble is caused in this world by indiscreet answers than by indiscreet questions.
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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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Skepticism is not an end in itself; it is a tool for the discovery of truths.
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Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.
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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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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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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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Between the semi-educated, who offer simplistic answers to complex questions, and the overeducated, who offer complicated answers to simple questions, it is a wonder that any questions get satisfactorily answered at all.
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The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.
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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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Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.
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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 main discomfort in being a middle-of-the-roader is that you get sideswiped by partisans going in both directions.
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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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS