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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

It’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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Confidence Relationship Self Esteem
The public examination of homosexuality in our contemporary life is still so coated with distasteful moral connotations that even a reviewer is bound to wonder uneasily why he was selected to evaluate a book on the subject.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Children Coated Examination Father Review Team
Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Attitude Hate Shadow
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
Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Brain Knowledge One Small
There’s no point in burying a hatchet if you’re going to put up a marker on the site.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Forgiveness Heartbroken Site
When we have “second thoughts” about something, our first thoughts don’t seem like thoughts at all – just feelings.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Feelings Firsts Justice
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Commodity Nobody Precious Really Talented
A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Forgiveness Forgiving Loser
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
People decline invitations when they are “indisposed” physically, and I wish they would do likewise when they feel indisposed emotionally. A person has no more right to attend a party with a head full of venom than with a throat full of virus.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Imposed Party People Physically Wish
Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Acceptance Mediocrity Merit
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
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Communication Loneliness Real
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 pessimist sees only the tunnel; the optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel; the realist sees the tunnel and the light – and the next tunnel.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Light Next Optimist Tunnels

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 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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