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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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Sydney J. Harris
Age: 69 †
Born: 1917
Born: September 14
Died: 1986
Died: December 8
Journalist
London
England
Sydney Harris
Self
Whether
Depressed
Must
Action
Rude
Giving
Another
Possession
True
Determine
Become
Actions
Give
Masters
Elated
Persons
Attitude
Gracious
Person
Control
Attitudes

More quotes by 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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If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.
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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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There's no point in burying a hatchet if you're going to put up a marker on the site.
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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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It may be true that the weak will always be driven to the wall but it is the task of a just society to see that the wall is climbable.
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Those obsessed with health are not healthy the first requisite of good health is a certain calculated carelessness about oneself.
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There are always too many Democratic congressmen, too many Republican congressmen, and never enough U.S. congressmen.
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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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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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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.
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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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Many people feel guilty about things they shouldn't feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.
Sydney J. Harris
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There is no such thing as an atrocity in warfare that is greater than the atrocity of warfare itself.
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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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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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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We can often endure an extra pound of pain far more easily than we can suffer the withdrawal of an ounce of accustomed pleasure.
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.
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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