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Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves – so how can we know anyone else?

Sydney J. Harris

A winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others; a loser wants to be considered an expert by others before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Consider Experts Growth
As the horsepower in modern automobiles steadily rises, the congestion of traffic steadily lowers the average possible speed of your car. This is known as Progress.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Average Car Progress
If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Acceptance Endure Terrible
The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Education Mirror Purpose Whole Window
People who think they’re generous to a fault usually think that’s their only fault.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Generosity People Thinking
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. HARRIS

Assert Children Defensively Terms Track
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Cynical May Men
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Care Commodity Precious Time World
Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Keeping Promises Summer Winter
The main discomfort in being a middle-of-the-roader is that you get sideswiped by partisans going in both directions.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Discomfort Middle Partisan
More trouble is caused in this world by indiscreet answers than by indiscreet questions.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Answers Trouble World
The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s leisure.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

College Education Mind
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Core Evoke Only Person Resonate
When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Funny Inspirational Life
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. HARRIS

Education Parenting Responsibility
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Estimated Party People Play Worst
A man will lay down his life for his friend but will not sacrifice his eardrums.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Down Friend Lay Man Sacrifice
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Appalled Christ Enemy Jesus
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Appreciation Loss Swing
It’s odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that English is the only major language in which “I” is capitalized; in many other languages “You” is capitalized and the “i” is lower case.” —
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

English Facts Language Littles Unsetting
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Math Real Technology
The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Dislike Someone Independence Independent
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Belief Dogmatic Reason Structure
Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Acceptance Mediocrity Merit
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Art Choices Squares
Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Attitude Hate Shadow
Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Dangerous Ignorance Nearly

Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves – so how can we know anyone else?

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Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves – so how can we know anyone else?

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