Top 167 Quotes & Sayings by Sydney J. Harris

Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.

The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.

A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.

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?

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

Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.

Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, 'Why not?' and the other, 'Why bother?'

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

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'.

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.

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

Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.

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.

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.

Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.

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.

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.

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.

Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.

People who think they're generous to a fault usually think that's their only fault.

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

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

Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.

Somebody who never got over the embarrassing fact that he was born in bed with a lady.

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.

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

Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.

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

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

Many a secret that cannot be pried out by curiosity can be drawn out by indifference.

The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

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

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.

Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.

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 whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

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 best combination of parents consists of a father who is gentle beneath his firmness, and a mother who is firm beneath her gentleness.

"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.

Honesty consists of the unwillingness to lie to others; maturity, which is equally hard to attain, consists of the unwillingness to lie to oneself.

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.

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.

If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.

Every rule in the book can be broken, except one - be who you are, and become all you were meant to be.

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.

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."

There are always too many Democratic congressmen, too many Republican congressmen, and never enough U.S. congressmen.

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.

History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.

We believe what we want to believe, what we like to believe, what suits our prejudices and fuels our passions.

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

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.

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.

Never let your fears be the boundaries of your dreams. Happiness is a direction, not a place.

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

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.

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.

Never take the advice of someone who has not had your kind of trouble.

We evaluate others with a Godlike justice, but we want them to evaluate us with a Godlike compassion.