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This is a lesson mankind has not yet learned. We identify, and stratify, and treat persons largely on the basis of their accidental (physical) characteristics, which have no deeper meaning.

Sydney J. Harris

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
Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, ‘Why not?’ and the other, ‘Why bother?’
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Bother Funny Two Witty
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
Almost every man looks more so in a belted trench coat.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Coats Looks Men
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 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
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
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
Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Ideas Men Thinking
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
When we inform, we lead from strength; when we communicate, we lead from weakness-and it is precisely this confession of mortality that engages the ears, heads and hearts of those we want to enlist as allies in a common cause.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Allies Heart Weakness
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
Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Enemy Lovers Time Love
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
There is no such thing as an “atrocity” in warfare that is greater than the atrocity of warfare itself.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Atrocities Greater Warfare
Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Acceptance Assuming Tolerance

This is a lesson mankind has not yet learned. We identify, and stratify, and treat persons largely on the basis of their accidental (physical) characteristics, which have no deeper meaning.

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This is a lesson mankind has not yet learned. We identify, and stratify, and treat persons largely on the basis of their accidental (physical) characteristics, which have no deeper meaning.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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