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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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Sydney J. Harris
Age: 69 †
Born: 1917
Born: September 14
Died: 1986
Died: December 8
Journalist
London
England
Sydney Harris
First
Successful
Overcome
Future
Overcoming
Use
Leadership
Cannot
Truly
Past
Unless
Surmount
Persons
Present
Cope
Person
Either
Effectively
Firsts
Sports
Prepare

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Many a secret that cannot be pried out by curiosity can be drawn out by indifference.
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Those who imagine that the world is against them have generally conspired to make it true.
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Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.
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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.
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Ninety per cent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves - so how can we know anyone else?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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We believe what we want to believe, what we like to believe, what suits our prejudices and fuels our passions.
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Ancient boundaries are meaningless, except for political purposes old divisions of clan and tribe are sentimental remnants of the pre-atomic age neither creed nor color nor place of origin is relevant to the realities of modern power to utterly seek and destroy.
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Gourmet: Usually little more than a glutton festooned with credit cards.
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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.
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Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.
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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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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.
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Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a necessary evil, it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
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