We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we have stopped saying ‘It got lost,’ and say, ‘I lost it.’
SYDNEY J. HARRISIt’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.
More Sydney J. Harris Quotes
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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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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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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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Good teaching must be slow enough so that it is not confusing, and fast enough so that it is not boring.
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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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An idealist believes the short run doesn’t count. A cynic believes the long run doesn’t matter.
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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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There is no such thing as an “atrocity” in warfare that is greater than the atrocity of warfare itself.
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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 art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.
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The best thing you can give children, next to good habits, are good memories.
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Happiness is a direction, not a place.
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Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
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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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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 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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When we have “second thoughts” about something, our first thoughts don’t seem like thoughts at all – just feelings.
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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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Life is, if anything, the art of combination. Of discrimination. Of freely picking one’s own personal pattern out of a hundred choices. Not letting it be picked for you-either by the Establishment, or by the Rebels. Conformity of Hip is no better than Conformity of Square.
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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 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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Real loneliness consists not in being alone, but in being with the wrong person, in the suffocating darkness of a room in which no deep communication is possible.
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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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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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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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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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS