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Skepticism is not an end in itself it is a tool for the discovery of truths.

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
Discovery
Tools
Ends
Truth
Skepticism
Tool
Truths

More quotes by Sydney J. Harris

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Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
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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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.
Sydney J. Harris
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The real heretic is not the atheist or agnostic (who are often decent people) but those who murmur it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as it makes you feel good. This turns religion into a subjective matter, like taste in furnishings, and robs theology of its claim to ultimate truth.
Sydney J. Harris
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Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance. We may hate a person because he reminds us of someone we feared and disliked when younger or because we see in him some gross caricature of what we find repugnant in ourself or because he symbolizes an attitude that seems to threaten us.
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
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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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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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Any creed whose basic doctrines do not include respect for the creeds of others, is simply power politics masquerading as philosophy.
Sydney J. Harris
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A winner rebukes and forgives a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.
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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And most of the failures in parent-child relationships, from my observation, begin when the child begins to acquire a mind and a will of its own, to make independent decisions and to question the omnipotence or the wisdom of the parent.
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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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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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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As WArden Lawes once said of convicts, no man can be called a failure until he has tried something he really likes, and fails at it.
Sydney J. Harris
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Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage.
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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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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The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.
Sydney J. Harris