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Take away grievances from some people and you remove their reasons for living; most of us are nourished by hope, but a considerable minority get psychic nutrition from their resentments, and would waste away purposelessly without them.

Sydney J. Harris

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, his is also one who is permanently disappointed in the future.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Fear Lessons Past
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
If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Anger Power Wisdom
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
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

Characteristics Lessons Treats
The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Art Knowing Made
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
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
It is not only useless, it is harmful, to believe in oneself until one truly knows oneself. And to know oneself means to accept our moments of insanity, of eccentricity, of childishness and blindness.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Believe Insanity Mean
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
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 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
Almost every man looks more so in a belted trench coat.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS

Coats Looks Men
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
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
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

Take away grievances from some people and you remove their reasons for living; most of us are nourished by hope, but a considerable minority get psychic nutrition from their resentments, and would waste away purposelessly without them.

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Take away grievances from some people and you remove their reasons for living; most of us are nourished by hope, but a considerable minority get psychic nutrition from their resentments, and would waste away purposelessly without them.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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