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

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

Understanding the Quote: "we truly possess only what we are able to renounce; otherwise, we..."

This quote by Sydney J. Harris reflects deeply on the theme of able. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Able, Renounce, Possession, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Sydney J. Harris interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Sydney J. Harris

Sydney J. Harris is celebrated for insightful thoughts on able and renounce. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Able
Renounce
Possession
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And Most Of The Failures In Parent-child Relationships, From My Observation, Begin When The Child Begins To Acquire A Mind And A Will Of Its Own, To Make Independent Decisions And To Question The Omnipotence Or The Wisdom Of The Parent.
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The Deepest And Rarest Kind Of Courage Has Nothing To Do With Feats Or Obstacles In The Outside World; And, Indeed, Has Nothing To Do With The Outside World - It Is The Courage To Be Who You Are.
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The Greatest Educational Dogma Is Also Its Greatest Fallacy: The Belief That What Must Be Learned Can Necessarily Be Taught.
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An Idealist Believes The Short Run Doesn't Count. A Cynic Believes The Long Run Doesn't Matter. A Realist Believes That What Is Done Or Left Undone In The Short Run Determines The Long Run.
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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.
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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." --
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Agnosticism Is A Perfectly Respectable And Tenable Philosophical Position; It Is Not Dogmatic And Makes No Pronouncements About The Ultimate Truths Of The Universe. It Remains Open To Evidence And Persuasion; Lacking Faith, It Nevertheless Does Not Deride Faith. Atheism, On The Other Hand, Is As Unyielding And Dogmatic About Religious Belief As True Believers Are About Heathens. It Tries To Use Reason To Demolish A Structure That Is Not Built Upon Reason.
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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.
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By The Time A Man Asks You For Advice, He Has Generally Made Up His Mind What He Wants To Do, And Is Looking For Confirmation Rather Than Counseling.
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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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We Have Not Passed That Subtle Line Between Childhood And Adulthood Until We Have Stopped Saying 'it Got Lost,' And Say, 'i Lost It.'
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Many Persons Of High Intelligence Have Notoriously Poor Judgement.
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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.
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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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Any Philosophy That Can Be Put In A Nutshell Belongs There.
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A Person Is Either Himself Or Not Himself; Is Either Rooted In His Existence Or Is A Fabrication; Has Either Found His Humanhood Or Is Still Playing With Masks And Roles And Status Symbols. And Nobody Is More Aware Of This Difference (although Unconsciously) Than A Child. Only An Authentic Person Can Evoke A Good Response In The Core Of The Other Person; Only Person Is Resonant To Person.
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People
Faults
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.
Heart
Weakness
Allies
The Best Thing You Can Give Children, Next To Good Habits, Are Good Memories.
Mom
Children
Memories
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.
Men
Likes
Failing
Regret For The Things We Did Can Be Tempered By Time; It Is Regret For The Things We Did Not Do That Is Inconsolable.
Love
Inspirational
Motivational
If You Cannot Endure To Be Thought In The Wrong, You Will Begin To Do Terrible Things To Make The Wrong Appear Right.
Acceptance
Endure
Terrible
When I Hear Somebody Sigh, 'life Is Hard,' I Am Always Tempted To Ask, 'compared To What?'
Inspirational
Funny
Life
Every Rule In The Book Can Be Broken, Except One - Be Who You Are, And Become All You Were Meant To Be.
Book
Effectiveness
Broken
A Winner Rebukes And Forgives; A Loser Is Too Timid To Rebuke And Too Petty To Forgive.
Forgiveness
Forgiving
Loser
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.
Education
Dark
Mirrors
We Can Often Endure An Extra Pound Of Pain Far More Easily Than We Can Suffer The Withdrawal Of An Ounce Of Accustomed Pleasure.
Pain
Suffering
Withdrawal
Once We Assuage Our Conscience By Calling Something A "necessary Evil", It Begins To Look More And More Necessary And Less And Less Evil.
Integrity
Evil
Looks
The Primary Purpose Of A Liberal Education Is To Make One's Mind A Pleasant Place In Which To Spend One's Leisure.
Education
College
Mind
If The Devil Could Be Persuaded To Write A Bible, He Would Title It, "you Only Live Once."
Bible
Writing
Devil
There Is No Such Thing As An "atrocity" In Warfare That Is Greater Than The Atrocity Of Warfare Itself.
Atrocities
Warfare
Greater
The Difference Between Patriotism And Nationalism Is That The Patriot Is Proud Of His Country For What It Does, And The Nationalist Is Proud Of His Country No Matter What It Does; The First Attitude Creates A Feeling Of Responsibility, But The Second A Feeling Of Blind Arrogance That Leads To War.
Country
Attitude
War
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.
Party
Play
People
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.
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Pain
May
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.
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Lust
Ignorance Per Se Is Not Nearly As Dangerous As Ignorance Of Ignorance.
Ignorance
Dangerous
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.
Country
Humility
Pride
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."
Wise
Wisdom
Men
Intolerance Is The Most Socially Acceptable Form Of Egotism, For It Permits Us To Assume Superiority Without Personal Boasting.
Acceptance
Tolerance
Assuming
Happiness Held Is The Seed; Happiness Shared Is The Flower. A Truly Happy Person Is One Who Can Enjoy The Scenery While On A Detour. Happiness Is A Direction, Not A Place.
Flower
Detours
Enjoy
Those Who Imagine That The World Is Against Them Have Generally Conspired To Make It True.
Imagination
World
Imagine
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.
Simple
Answers
Wonder
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.
Couple
Divorce
Should Have
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.
Perseverance
Wall
Talent
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.
Character
Secret
Tests
History Repeats Itself, But In Such Cunning Disguise That We Never Detect The Resemblance Until The Damage Is Done.
Damage Is Done
History Repeats Itself
Cunning
All Significant Achievement Comes From Daring From Experiment From The Willingness To Risk Failure.
Failure
Achievement
Risk
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.
Nice
Done
Deeds
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.
Average
Car
Progress
Democracy Is The Only System That Persists In Asking The Powers That Be Whether They Are The Powers That Ought To Be.
Witty
Democracies Have
Political
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.
Thinking
Want
Matter
Law Is Order In Liberty, And Without Order Liberty Is Social Chaos.
Order
Law
Liberty
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.
Teacher
May
Wince
We Believe What We Want To Believe, What We Like To Believe, What Suits Our Prejudices And Fuels Our Passions.
Believe
Passion
Prejudice
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.
Failure
Mean
Acceptance
It Wants To Be, And Proclaims Itself To Be, 'the Greatest', But Greatness Is Not Required Of A Country; Only Goodness Is.
Country
Greatness
Patriotism
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.
Reality
Color
Political
The Greatest Enemy Of Progress Is Not Stagnation, But False Progress.
Enemy Of Progress
Enemy
Progress
God Cannot Be Solemn, Or He Would Not Have Blessed Man With The Incalculable Gift Of Laughter.
Laughter
Blessed
Men
If You Want To Know What A Man's Character Is Really Like... Ask Him To Tell You The Living Person He Most Admires - For Hero Worship Is The Truest Index Of A Man's Private Nature.
Hero
Character
Men
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