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Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.

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
Nearly
Ignorance
Dangerous

More quotes by Sydney J. Harris

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Genealogy: A perverse preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebears were better people than they are.
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Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
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Good teaching must be slow enough so that it is not confusing, and fast enough so that it is not boring.
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God cannot be solemn, or he would not have blessed man with the incalculable gift of laughter.
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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.
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We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we have stopped saying 'It got lost,' and say, 'I lost it.'
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If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.
Sydney J. Harris
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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.
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A truly successful person knows how to overcome the past, use the present, and prepare for the future-but unless we can first surmount the past, we cannot effectively cope with either the present or the future.
Sydney J. Harris
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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
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Terrorism is what we call the violence of the weak, and we condemn it war is what we call the violence of the strong, and we glorify it.
Sydney J. Harris
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As long as there are human beings, there will be the idea of brotherhood -- and an almost total inability to practice it.
Sydney J. Harris
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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.
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We must become masters of our own actions and attitudes. To let another person determine whether we will be rude or gracious, elated or depressed is to give control of ourselves. The only true possession is self possession.
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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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
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The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.
Sydney J. Harris
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The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, 'I was wrong'.
Sydney J. Harris
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Gourmet: Usually little more than a glutton festooned with credit cards.
Sydney J. Harris
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The difference between faith and superstition is that the first uses reason to go as far as it can, and then makes the jump the second shuns reason entirely — which is why superstition is not the ally, but the enemy, of true religion.
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