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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
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Sydney J. Harris
Age: 69 †
Born: 1917
Born: September 14
Died: 1986
Died: December 8
Journalist
London
England
Sydney Harris
College
Education
Leisure
Purpose
Primaries
Place
Primary
Mind
Liberal
Make
Pleasant
Educational
Spend
More quotes by Sydney J. Harris
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
The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.
Sydney J. Harris
Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.
Sydney J. Harris
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
Never take the advice of someone who has not had your kind of trouble.
Sydney J. Harris
Genealogy: A perverse preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebears were better people than they are.
Sydney J. Harris
If you want to know what a man's character is really like... ask him to tell you the living person he most admires - for hero worship is the truest index of a man's private nature.
Sydney J. Harris
More trouble is caused in this world by indiscreet answers than by indiscreet questions.
Sydney J. Harris
Nuclear war is inevitable, says the pessimists Nuclear war is impossible, says the optimists Nuclear war is inevitable unless we make it impossible, says the realists.
Sydney J. Harris
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
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
Being yourself is not remaining what you were, or being satisfied with what you are. It is the point of departure and far from the goal.
Sydney J. Harris
Skepticism is not an end in itself it is a tool for the discovery of truths.
Sydney J. Harris
Self-discipline without talent can often achieve astounding results, whereas talent without self-discipline inevitably dooms itself to failure.
Sydney J. Harris
A famously wise old man in a village was once asked how he came by his wisdom. I got it from my good judgment, he answered. And where did his good judgment come from? I got it from my bad judgment.
Sydney J. Harris
Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.
Sydney J. Harris
Between the semi-educated, who offer simplistic answers to complex questions, and the overeducated, who offer complicated answers to simple questions, it is a wonder that any questions get satisfactorily answered at all.
Sydney J. Harris
Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.
Sydney J. Harris
When you run into someone who is disagreeable to others, you may be sure he is uncomfortable with himself the amount of pain we inflict upon others is directly proportional to the amount we feel within us.
Sydney J. Harris
Men make counterfeit money in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.
Sydney J. Harris
