Those who imagine that the world is against them have generally conspired to make it true.
SYDNEY J. HARRISThe primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s leisure.
More Sydney J. Harris Quotes
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
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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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Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.
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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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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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS