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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

The best combination of parents consists of a father who is gentle beneath his firmness, and a mother who is firm beneath her gentleness.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Father Mother Parent
Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Enemy Lovers Time Love
All significant achievement comes from daring from experiment from the willingness to risk failure.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Achievement Failure Risk
Many people feel “guilty” about things they shouldn’t feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Feelings Order People
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

Character Refrain Secret Several Tests
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Country Humility Legitimate Pride
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
Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Attitude Hate Shadow
We may hate a person because he reminds us of someone we feared and disliked when younger; or because we see in him some gross caricature of what we find repugnant in ourself; or because he symbolizes an attitude that seems to threaten us.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Fear Ourselves Person Someone Younger
Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Dangerous Ignorance Nearly
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
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
Those who imagine that the world is against them have generally conspired to make it true.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Imagination Imagine World
The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Creative Educational Taught
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Children Men Philosophy
We truly possess only what we are able to renounce; otherwise, we are simply possessed by our possessions.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Able Possession Renounce

The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.

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The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.

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