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The link between ideas and action is rarely direct. There is almost always an intermediate step in which the idea is overcome. De Tocqueville points out that it is at times when passions start to govern human affairs that ideas are most obviously translated into political action. The translation of ideas into action is usually in the hands of people least likely to follow rational motives. Hence, it is that action is often the nemesis of ideas, and sometimes of the men who formulate them. One of the marks of the truly vigorous society is the ability to dispense with passion as a midwife of action the ability to pass directly from thought to action. Eric Hoffer		Sunday Dec 28, 2025
		Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969

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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 ones 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. Sydney J. Harris

Quote Author: Sydney J. Harris

Sydney J. Harris

Sydney J. Harris

Sydney J. Harris (14 September 1917 - 8 December 1986) was an American journalist for the Chicago Daily News and later the Chicago Sun-Times. His column, “Strictly Personal,” was syndicated in many newspapers throughout the United States and Canada.

He was born in London but grew up in Chicago, where he spent the rest of his life. He attended high school with Saul Bellow, who was his lifelong friend.

He became a member of the editorial staff of the Chicago Daily News in 1941 and began his column in 1944. His work landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents.

He was also a drama critic, teacher, and lecturer, and he received numerous honorary doctorates during his career. In 1980 - 1982 he was the Visiting Scholar at Lenoir-Rhyne College in North Carolina. For many years he was a member of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. Harris was married twice and he fathered five children.

Other Sydney J. Harris Quotes

The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.

If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

All significant achievement comes from daring, from experiment, from the willingness to risk failure.

Being yourself is not remaining what you were, or being satisfied with what you are. It is the point of departure.

There's no point in burying the hatchet if you're going to put up a marker on the site.

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.

Maturity begins when we're content to feel we're right about something without feeling the necessity to prove someone else wrong.

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is the one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.

The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's leisure.

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 ones 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.

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.

People far prefer happiness to wisdom, but that is like wanting to be immortal without getting older.

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.

The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.

The two words 'information' and 'communication' are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.

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.

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 main discomfort in being a middle-of-the-roader is that you get sideswiped by partisans going in both directions.

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 ones self cannot be learned from another.

Those who imagine that the world is against them have generally conspired to make it true.

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.

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.

Filth is always a sign of weakness in the mouth of the user and in the mind of the writer.

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.

You may be certain that when a man begins to call himself a 'realist,' he is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of.

When we have 'second thoughts' about something, our first thoughts don't seem like thoughts at all just feelings.

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.

Skepticism is not an end in itself; it is a tool for the discovery of truths.

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.

The time to relax is when you dont have time for it.

Men may be divided almost any way we please, but I have found the most useful distinction to be made between those who devote their lives to conjugating the verb 'to be,' and those who spend their lives conjugating the verb 'to have.'

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice that is, until we stop saying 'It got lost,' and say 'I lost it.'

When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a 'necessary evil,' it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.

Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.

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 ourselvesso how can we know anyone else?