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As We Grow Older, We Should Learn That These Are Two Quite Different Things. Character Is Something You Forge For Yourself; Temperament Is Something You Are Born With And Can Only Slightly Modify. Some People Have Easy Temperaments And Weak Characters; Others Have Difficult Temperaments And Strong Characters. We Are All Prone To Confuse The Two In Assessing People We Associate With. Those With Easy Temperaments And Weak Characters Are More Likable Than Admirable; Those With Difficult Temperaments And Strong Characters Are More Admirable Than Likable.

-Sydney J. Harris

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As We Grow Older,

Sydney J. Harris

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As We Grow Older, We Should Learn That These Are Two Quite Different Things. Character Is Something You Forge For Yourself; Temperament Is Something You Are Born With And Can Only Slightly Modify. Some People Have Easy Temperaments And Weak Characters; Others Have Difficult Temperaments And Strong Characters. We Are All Prone To Confuse The Two In Assessing People We Associate With. Those With Easy Temperaments And Weak Characters Are More Likable Than Admirable; Those With Difficult Temperaments And Strong Characters Are More Admirable Than Likable.

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The Difference Between Faith And Superstition Is That The First Uses Reason To Go As Far As It Can, And Then Makes The Jump; The Second Shuns Reason Entirely — Which Is Why Superstition Is Not The Ally, But The Enemy, Of True Religion.

Skepticism Is Not An End In Itself; It Is A Tool For The Discovery Of Truths.

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.

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People Decline Invitations When They Are "indisposed" Physically, And I Wish They Would Do Likewise When They Feel Indisposed Emotionally. A Person Has No More Right To Attend A Party With A Head Full Of Venom Than With A Throat Full Of Virus.

Ignorance Per Se Is Not Nearly As Dangerous As Ignorance Of Ignorance.

The Primary Purpose Of A Liberal Education Is To Make One's Mind A Pleasant Place In Which To Spend One's Leisure.

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.

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.

But What Is Significant Is That If You Don't Want To Like And Accept Somebody, One Excuse Is As Good As Another. The Objective Facts Don't Matter, And The Reasons Are Never As ‘reasonable' As We Like To Think They Are.

There Is No Such Thing As An "atrocity" In Warfare That Is Greater Than The Atrocity Of Warfare Itself.

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'.

When We Have "second Thoughts" About Something, Our First Thoughts Don't Seem Like Thoughts At All - Just Feelings.

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.

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?

As We Grow Older, We Should Learn That These Are Two Quite Different Things. Character Is Something You Forge For Yourself; Temperament Is Something You Are Born With And Can Only Slightly Modify. Some People Have Easy Temperaments And Weak Characters; Others Have Difficult Temperaments And Strong Characters. We Are All Prone To Confuse The Two In Assessing People We Associate With. Those With Easy Temperaments And Weak Characters Are More Likable Than Admirable; Those With Difficult Temperaments And Strong Characters Are More Admirable Than Likable.

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.

Nothing Is As Easy To Make As A Promise This Winter To Do Something Next Summer; This Is How Commencement Speakers Are Caught.

Keeping Promises

A Loser Says That's The Way It's Always Been Done. A Winner Says There Ought To Be A Better Way.

The Best Thing You Can Give Children, Next To Good Habits, Are Good Memories.

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.

Nobody Can Be So Amusingly Arrogant As A Young Man Who Has Just Discovered An Old Idea And Thinks It Is His Own.

The Truest Test Of Independent Judgment Is Being Able To Dislike Someone Who Admires Us, And To Admire Someone Who Dislikes Us.

Dislike Someone

Patriotism Is Proud Of A Country's Virtues And Eager To Correct Its Deficiencies; It Also Acknowledges The Legitimate Patriotism Of Other Countries, With Their Own Specific Virtues. The Pride Of Nationalism, However, Trumpets Its Country's Virtues And Denies Its Deficiencies, While It Is Contemptuous Toward The Virtues Of Other Countries. It Wants To Be, And Proclaims Itself To Be, "the Greatest," But Greatness Is Not Required Of A Country; Only Goodness Is.

What The Ordinary Person Means By A 'miracle' Is Some Gross Distortion Or Suspension Of The Laws Of Nature... But Life Itself Strikes Him As Commonplace, When In Truth A Blade Of Grass Or A Neuron In The Brain Is A Greater Miracle.

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.

When I Hear Somebody Sigh, 'life Is Hard,' I Am Always Tempted To Ask, 'compared To What?'

Never Take The Advice Of Someone Who Has Not Had Your Kind Of Trouble.

Filth Is Always A Sign Of Weakness - In The Mouth Of The User And In The Mind Of The Writer.

The Greatest Enemy Of Progress Is Not Stagnation, But False Progress.

Enemy Of Progress

The Lusts Of The Flesh Can Be Gratified Anywhere; It Is Not This Sort Of License That Distinguishes New York. It Is Rather, A Lust Of The Total Ego For Recognition, Even For Eminence. More Than Elsewhere, Everybody Here Wants To Be Somebody.

Sincerity That Thinks It Is The Sole Possessor Of The Truth Is A Deadlier Sin Than Hypocrisy, Which Knows Better.

History Repeats Itself, But In Such Cunning Disguise That We Never Detect The Resemblance Until The Damage Is Done.

History Repeats Itself

Elitism Is The Slur Directed At Merit By Mediocrity.

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The Pessimist Sees Only The Tunnel; The Optimist Sees The Light At The End Of The Tunnel; The Realist Sees The Tunnel And The Light - And The Next Tunnel.

"terrorism" Is What We Call The Violence Of The Weak, And We Condemn It; "war" Is What We Call The Violence Of The Strong, And We Glorify It.

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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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Somebody Who Never Got Over The Embarrassing Fact That He Was Born In Bed With A Lady.

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Any Philosophy That Can Be Put In A Nutshell Belongs There.

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Confidence, Once Lost Or Betrayed, Can Never Be Restored Again To The Same Measure; And We Learn Too Late In Life That Our Acts Of Deception Are Irrevocable - They May Be Forgiven, But They Cannot Be Forgotten By Their Victims.

The Founder Of Every Creed From Jesus Christ To Karl Marx, Would Be Appalled To Return To Earth And See What Has Been Made Of That Creed, Not By Its Enemies, But By Its Most Devoted Adherents.

If You Cannot Endure To Be Thought In The Wrong, You Will Begin To Do Terrible Things To Make The Wrong Appear Right.

Character Is Something You Forge For Yourself; Temperament Is Something You Are Born With And Can Only Slightly Modify.

This Is A Lesson Mankind Has Not Yet Learned. We Identify, And Stratify, And Treat Persons Largely On The Basis Of Their Accidental (physical) Characteristics, Which Have No Deeper Meaning.

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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.

The Loner May Be Respected, But He Is Always Resented By His Colleagues, For He Seems To Be Passing A Critical Judgment On Them, When He May Be Simply Making A Limiting Statement About Himself.

Nice Things Are Done For Our Own Sake, Not For The Sake Of Others. The Pleasure Must Reside In The Performance, Not In The Applause. Good Deeds Are, In A Deeper Psychological Way, A Favor To Oneself. If This Is Not Grasped, Then Our Whole Sense Of Personal Relationships Becomes Warped.

The Generality Of Mankind Is Lazy. What Distinguishes Men Of Genuine Achievement From The Rest Of Us Is Not So Much Their Intellectual Powers And Aptitudes As Their Curiosity, Their Energy, Their Fullest Use Of Their Potentialities. Nobody Really Knows How Smart Or Talented He Is Until He Finds The Incentives To Use Himself To The Fullest. God Has Given Us More Than We Know What To Do With.

The Best Combination Of Parents Consists Of A Father Who Is Gentle Beneath His Firmness, And A Mother Who Is Firm Beneath Her Gentleness.

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.

Enemies, As Well As Lovers, Come To Resemble Each Other Over A Period Of Time.

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.

Just About The Only Interruption We Don't Object To Is Applause.

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.

Our Dilemma Is That We Hate Change And Love It At The Same Time; What We Really Want Is For Things To Remain The Same But Get Better.

People Who Think They're Generous To A Fault Usually Think That's Their Only Fault.

As The Horsepower In Modern Automobiles Steadily Rises, The Congestion Of Traffic Steadily Lowers The Average Possible Speed Of Your Car. This Is Known As Progress.

The Acceptance Of Ambiguity Implies More Than The Commonplace Understanding That Some Good Things And Some Bad Things Happen To Us. It Means That We Know That Good And Evil Are Inextricably Intermixed In Human Affairs; That They Contain, And Sometimes Embrace, Their Opposites; That Success May Involve Failure Of A Different Kind, And Failure May Be A Kind Of Triumph.

The Profound Immoralities Of Our Time Are Cruelty, Indifference, Injustice And The Use Of Others As Means Rather Than Ends In Themselves.

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.

Regret For The Things We Did Can Be Tempered By Time; It Is Regret For The Things We Did Not Do That Is Inconsolable.

At It's Highest Level, The Purpose Of Teaching Is Not To Teach—it Is To Inspire The Desire For Learning. Once A Student's Mind Is Set On Fire, It Will Find A Way To Provide Its Own Fuel.

Self-discipline Without Talent Can Often Achieve Astounding Results, Whereas Talent Without Self-discipline Inevitably Dooms Itself To Failure.

Never Let Your Fears Be The Boundaries Of Your Dreams. Happiness Is A Direction, Not A Place.

Follow Your Dreams

It Wants To Be, And Proclaims Itself To Be, 'the Greatest', But Greatness Is Not Required Of A Country; Only Goodness Is.

There Are Always Too Many Democratic Congressmen, Too Many Republican Congressmen, And Never Enough U.s. Congressmen.

Knowledge Fills A Large Brain; It Merely Inflates A Small One.

Why Do Most Americans Look Up To Education And Down Upon Educated People?

Christianity Is Not A "spiritual" Religion, Like Some Religions Of The East. It Is An Intensely "practical" Religion, Having Its Moral Roots In The Practicality Of Judaism. It Was Not Designed To Change The Way Men Think Or Believe As Much As To Change The Way They Act.

Man's Unique Agony As A Species Consists In His Perpetual Conflict Between The Desire To Stand Out And The Need To Blend In.

The Beauty Of 'spacing' Children Many Years Apart Lies In The Fact That Parents Have Time To Learn The Mistakes That Were Made With The Older Ones - Which Permits Them To Make Exactly The Opposite Mistakes With The Younger Ones.

The Two Words 'information' And 'communication' Are Often Used Interchangeably, But They Signify Quite Different Things. Information Is Giving Out; Communication Is Getting Through.

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.

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.

A Winner Rebukes And Forgives; A Loser Is Too Forgiveness Breaks The Chain Of Causality Because He Who Forgives You -- Out Of Love -- Takes Upon Himself The Consequences Of What You Have Done. Forgiveness, Therefore, Always Entails A Sacrifice.

It's Odd, And A Little Unsettling, To Reflect Upon The Fact That English Is The Only Major Language In Which "i" Is Capitalized; In Many Other Languages "you" Is Capitalized And The "i" Is Lower Case." --

The Whole Purpose Of Education Is To Turn Mirrors Into Windows.

The Severest Test Of Character Is Not So Much The Ability To Keep A Secret As It Is, When The Secret Is Finally Out, To Refrain From Disclosing That You Knew It All Along.

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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.

The Art Of Living Consists In Knowing Which Impulses To Obey And Which Must Be Made To Obey.

Any Creed Whose Basic Doctrines Do Not Include Respect For The Creeds Of Others, Is Simply Power Politics Masquerading As Philosophy.

The Public Examination Of Homosexuality In Our Contemporary Life Is Still So Coated With Distasteful Moral Connotations That Even A Reviewer Is Bound To Wonder Uneasily Why He Was Selected To Evaluate A Book On The Subject, And To Assert Defensively At The Outset That He Is Happily Married, The Father Of Four Children And The One-time Adornment Of His College Boxing, Track And Tennis Teams.

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Making Out An Invitation List For A Party Brings Out The Worst In Everyone. It Is Then That Our Most Ruthless Estimates Of The People We Know Come Into Play.

The Principal Difference Between Love And Hate Is That Love Is A Irradiation, And Hate Is A Concentration. Love Makes Everything Lovely; Hate Concentrates Itself On The Object Of Its Hatred.

Almost Every Man Looks More So In A Belted Trench Coat.

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.

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The Commonest Fallacy Among Women Is That Simply Having Children Makes Them A Mother - Which Is As Absurd As Believing That Having A Piano Makes One A Musician.

A University Is Not, Primarily, A Place In Which To Learn How To Make A Living; It Is A Place In Which To Learn How To Be More Fully A Human Being, How To Draw Upon One's Resources, How To Discipline The Mind And Expand The Imagination; How To Make Some Sense Out Of The Big World We Will Shortly Be Thrown Into.

If The Devil Could Be Persuaded To Write A Bible, He Would Title It, "you Only Live Once."

It's Surprising How Many Persons Go Through Life Without Ever Recognizing That Their Feelings Toward Other People Are Largely Determined By Their Feelings Toward Themselves, And If You're Not Comfortable Within Yourself, You Can't Be Comfortable With Others.

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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?

Take Away Grievances From Some People And You Remove Their Reasons For Living; Most Of Us Are Nourished By Hope, But A Considerable Minority Get Psychic Nutrition From Their Resentments, And Would Waste Away Purposelessly Without Them.

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Norbert Blei Is A Writer The Way People Used To Be Troubadours And Minstrels, Celebrating What He Has Seen And Heart And Felt In A Deceptively Simple Style Reminiscent Of The Early Sherwood Anderson. . . . Like Anderson, He Is A Lover, And His Affection Invests His Writing With A Singular Charm.

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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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Good Teaching Must Be Slow Enough So That It Is Not Confusing, And Fast Enough So That It Is Not Boring.

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Genealogy: A Perverse Preoccupation Of Those Who Seek To Demonstrate That Their Forebears Were Better People Than They Are.

Democracy Is The Only System That Persists In Asking The Powers That Be Whether They Are The Powers That Ought To Be.

Democracies Have

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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A 'penchant For Telling The Truth' Can Cripple A Candidates Chances Faster Than Being Caught In Flagrante Delicto With The Governor's Wife.

Telling The Truth

Middle Age Is That Perplexing Time Of Life When We Hear Two Voices Calling Us, One Saying, 'why Not?' And The Other, 'why Bother?'

Law Is Order In Liberty, And Without Order Liberty Is Social Chaos.

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We Truly Possess Only What We Are Able To Renounce; Otherwise, We Are Simply Possessed By Our Possessions.

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