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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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Western Civilization Has Not

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.

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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.

Gourmet: Usually Little More Than A Glutton Festooned With Credit Cards.

If You're Not Part Of The Solution, You're Part Of The Problem, But The Perpetual Human Predicament Is That The Answer Soon Poses Its Own Problems.

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.

Those Obsessed With Health Are Not Healthy; The First Requisite Of Good Health Is A Certain Calculated Carelessness About Oneself.

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.

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

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

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

Nobody Can Misunderstand A Child As Much As His Own Parents.

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.

The Art Of Listening Needs Its Highest Development In Listening To Oneself; Our Most Important Task Is To Develop An Ear That Can Really Hear What We're Saying.

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

As Long As There Are Human Beings, There Will Be The Idea Of Brotherhood -- And An Almost Total Inability To Practice It.

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.

Maturity Begins When We're Content To Feel We're Right About Something Without Feeling The Necessity To Prove Someone Else Wrong.

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."

The Real Danger Is Not That Computers Will Begin To Think Like Men, But That Men Will Begin To Think Like Computers.

The World Has Always Been Betrayed By Decent Men With Bad Ideals.

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

Those Who Imagine That The World Is Against Them Have Generally Conspired To Make It True.

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?

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.

God Cannot Be Solemn, Or He Would Not Have Blessed Man With The Incalculable Gift Of Laughter.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

More Trouble Is Caused In This World By Indiscreet Answers Than By Indiscreet Questions.

Once We Assuage Our Conscience By Calling Something A "necessary Evil", It Begins To Look More And More Necessary And Less And Less Evil.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Dislike Someone

We Evaluate Others With A Godlike Justice, But We Want Them To Evaluate Us With A Godlike Compassion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Paradox Of Friendship Is That It Is Both The Strongest Thing In The World And The Most Fragile. Wild Horses Cannot Separate Friends, But Whining Words Can. A Man Will Lay Down His Life For His Friend But Will Not Sacrifice His Eardrums.

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

Intolerance Is The Most Socially Acceptable Form Of Egotism, For It Permits Us To Assume Superiority Without Personal Boasting.

Every Rule In The Book Can Be Broken, Except One - Be Who You Are, And Become All You Were Meant To Be.

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.

American Parents, On The Whole, Do Not Want Their Sons To Be Artisans Or Craftsmen, But Business Or Professional People. As A Result, Millions Of Youngsters Are Being Prepared For Careers They Have Little Aptitude For - And Little Interest In Except For Dubious Prestige.

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.

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

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

Enemy Of Progress

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.

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.

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.

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.

All Significant Achievement Comes From Daring From Experiment From The Willingness To Risk Failure.

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?

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

We Believe What We Want To Believe, What We Like To Believe, What Suits Our Prejudices And Fuels Our Passions.

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

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.

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

People Who Won't Help Others In Trouble "because They Got Into Trouble Through Their Own Fault" Would Probably Not Throw A Lifeline To A Drowning Person Until They Learned Whether That Person Fell In Through His Or Her Own Fault Or Not.

We Have Not Passed That Subtle Line Between Childhood And Adulthood Until We Have Stopped Saying 'it Got Lost,' And Say, 'i Lost It.'

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

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

A Winner Knows How Much He Still Has To Learn, Even When He Is Considered An Expert By Others; A Loser Wants To Be Considered An Expert By Others Before He Has Learned Enough To Know How Little He Knows.

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

Follow Your Dreams

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.

What Is Much Harder To Handle Is The Sense That You Have To Live Up To The Mark Someone Else Has Set For You. The Grades Become Too Important, The Competition Too Frantic, The Fear Of Disappointing Those Who Believe In You Turns Into An Overwhelming Nightmare.

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

There's No Point In Burying A Hatchet If You're Going To Put Up A Marker On The Site.

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.

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.

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.

The Greatest Educational Dogma Is Also Its Greatest Fallacy: The Belief That What Must Be Learned Can Necessarily Be Taught.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

History Repeats Itself

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.

Every Morning I Take Out My Bankbook, Stare At It, Shudder - And Turn Quickly To My Typewriter.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Marriages We Regard As The Happiest Are Those In Which Each Of The Partners Believes He Or She Got The Best Of It.

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'.

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

Happiness Is A Direction, Not A Place.

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.

If A Small Thing Has The Power To Make You Angry, Does That Not Indicate Something About Your Size?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Congratulations

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

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.

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.

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.

Sometimes The Best, And Only Effective, Way To Kill An Idea Is To Put It Into Practice.

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?

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.

Characteristics

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." --

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

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.

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.

A Winner Rebukes And Forgives; A Loser Is Too Timid To Rebuke And Too Petty To Forgive.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Time To Relax Is When You Don't Have Time For It.

Many A Secret That Cannot Be Pried Out By Curiosity Can Be Drawn Out By Indifference.

Many Persons Of High Intelligence Have Notoriously Poor Judgement.

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.

Honesty Consists Of The Unwillingness To Lie To Others; Maturity, Which Is Equally Hard To Attain, Consists Of The Unwillingness To Lie To Oneself.

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.

Many People Know How To Work Hard; Many Others Know How To Play Well; But The Rarest Talent In The World Is The Ability To Introduce Elements Of Playfulness Into Work, And To Put Some Constructive Labor Into Our Leisure.

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.

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.

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.

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

We Can Often Endure An Extra Pound Of Pain Far More Easily Than We Can Suffer The Withdrawal Of An Ounce Of Accustomed Pleasure.

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

Elitism Is The Slur Directed At Merit By Mediocrity.

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.

The Main Discomfort In Being A Middle-of-the-roader Is That You Get Sideswiped By Partisans Going In Both Directions.

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 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.

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

Democracies Have

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

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

Isolation Always Perverts; When A Man Lives Only Among His Own Sort, He Soon Begins To Believe That His Sort Are The Best Sort. This Attitude Breeds Both The Arrogance Of The Conservative And The Bitterness Of The Radical.

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.

Men Make Counterfeit Money; In Many More Cases, Money Makes Counterfeit Men.

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

A Cynic Is Not Merely One Who Reads Bitter Lessons From The Past, His Is Also One Who Is Permanently Disappointed In The Future.

"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.

You May Be Sure That When A Man Begins To Call Himself A Realist He Is Preparing To Do Something That He Is Secretly Ashamed Of Doing.

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

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.

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.

Why Are We Willing To Accept A New Mathematical Formula We Don't Understand As The Product Of A Brilliant Mind, While Rejecting A New Art Form We Don't Understand As The Product Of A Deranged Mind?

Time Is Love, Above All Else. It Is The Most Precious Commodity In The World And Should Be Lavished On Those We Care Most About.

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.

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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