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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
Spend
College
Education
Leisure
Purpose
Primaries
Place
Primary
Mind
Liberal
Make
Pleasant
Educational

More quotes by Sydney J. Harris

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We truly possess only what we are able to renounce otherwise, we are simply possessed by our possessions.
Sydney J. Harris
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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
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Confidence, once lost or betrayed, can never be restored again to the same measure and we learn too late in life that our acts of deception are irrevocable - they may be forgiven, but they cannot be forgotten by their victims.
Sydney J. Harris
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All significant achievement comes from daring from experiment from the willingness to risk failure.
Sydney J. Harris
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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
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Sincerity that thinks it is the sole possessor of the truth is a deadlier sin than hypocrisy, which knows better.
Sydney J. Harris
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It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that English is the only major language in which I is capitalized in many other languages You is capitalized and the i is lower case. --
Sydney J. Harris
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Much as a teacher may wince at the thought, he is also an entertainer—for unless he can hold his audience, he cannot really instruct or edify them.
Sydney J. Harris
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We evaluate others with a Godlike justice, but we want them to evaluate us with a Godlike compassion.
Sydney J. Harris
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The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face.
Sydney J. Harris
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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
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Christianity is not a spiritual religion, like some religions of the east. It is an intensely practical religion, having its moral roots in the practicality of judaism. It was not designed to change the way men think or believe as much as to change the way they act.
Sydney J. Harris
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All our efforts to attain immortality-by statesmanship, by conquest, by science or the arts-are equally vain in the long run, because the long run is longer than any of us can imagine.
Sydney J. Harris
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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
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When a baseball player makes an error, it goes into the record and is published. How many of us could stand this sort of daily scrutiny?
Sydney J. Harris
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Men make counterfeit money in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.
Sydney J. Harris
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A winner rebukes and forgives a loser is too Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who forgives you -- out of love -- takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice.
Sydney J. Harris
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The founder of every creed from Jesus Christ to Karl Marx, would be appalled to return to earth and see what has been made of that creed, not by its enemies, but by its most devoted adherents.
Sydney J. Harris
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By the time a man asks you for advice, he has generally made up his mind what he wants to do, and is looking for confirmation rather than counseling.
Sydney J. Harris
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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