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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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Sydney J. Harris
Age: 69 †
Born: 1917
Born: September 14
Died: 1986
Died: December 8
Journalist
London
England
Sydney Harris
Thinking
Possessor
Hypocrisy
Sincerity
Sole
Thinks
Sin
Truth
Better

More quotes by Sydney J. Harris

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Parents - and teachers too - are woefully short-sighted when they try to protect the child from his mistakes, when they make the right answer more important than the quest for knowledge and good judgment. For what is not learned within one's self cannot be learned from another.
Sydney J. Harris
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If the devil could be persuaded to write a bible, he would title it, You Only Live Once.
Sydney J. Harris
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Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer this is how commencement speakers are caught.
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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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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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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Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a necessary evil, it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
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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When you run into someone who is disagreeable to others, you may be sure he is uncomfortable with himself the amount of pain we inflict upon others is directly proportional to the amount we feel within us.
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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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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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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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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Why do so many people yearn for an eternal life when they don't even know what to do with themselves in this brief one?
Sydney J. Harris
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Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
Sydney J. Harris
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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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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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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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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.
Sydney J. Harris