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The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.

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
Stagnation
False
Progress
Greatest
Enemy

More quotes by 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.
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Somebody who never got over the embarrassing fact that he was born in bed with a lady.
Sydney J. Harris
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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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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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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
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Perseverance is the most overrated of traits, if it is unaccompanied by talent beating your head against a wall is more likely to produce a concussion in the head than a hole in the wall.
Sydney J. Harris
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The reason that truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction has to have a rational thread running through it in order to be believable, whereas reality may be totally irrational.
Sydney J. Harris
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An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.
Sydney J. Harris
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Many married couples separate because they quarrel incessantly, but just as many separate because they were never honest enough or courageous enough to quarrel when they should have.
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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Filth is always a sign of weakness - in the mouth of the user and in the mind of the writer.
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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Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
Sydney J. Harris
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Maturity begins when we're content to feel we're right about something without feeling the necessity to prove someone else wrong.
Sydney J. Harris
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Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.
Sydney J. Harris
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Never take the advice of someone who has not had your kind of trouble.
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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Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.
Sydney J. Harris
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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
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Western civilization has not yet learned the lesson that the energy we expend in 'getting things done' is less important than the moral strength it takes to decide what is worth doing and what is right to do.
Sydney J. Harris