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More trouble is caused in this world by indiscreet answers than by indiscreet questions.

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
Caused
Questions
Answers
Trouble
World
Indiscreet

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Those who imagine that the world is against them have generally conspired to make it true.
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When we inform, we lead from strength when we communicate, we lead from weakness—and it is precisely this confession of mortality that engages the ears, heads and hearts of those we want to enlist as allies in a common cause.
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All significant achievement comes from daring from experiment from the willingness to risk failure.
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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.
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If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
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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.
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Much as a teacher may wince at the thought, he is also an entertainer—for unless he can hold his audience, he cannot really instruct or edify them.
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The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.
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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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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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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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A winner rebukes and forgives a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.
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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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Nobody can misunderstand a child as much as his own parents.
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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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Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.
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.
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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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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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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