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.
—Sydney J. Harris
Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, “Why not?” and the other, “Why bother?”
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Age
There are some things people can do to change and some things they cannot do — character can be formed, but temperament is given. And the strong who cannot bend are just as much to be pitied as the weak who cannot stiffen.
—Sydney J. Harris
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 have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.”
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Self-reliance, Responsibility, Confidence, Mistakes, Failures, Maturity
Self-discipline without talent can often achieve astounding results, whereas talent without self-discipline inevitably dooms itself to failure.
—Sydney J. Harris
Genealogy: A perverse preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebears were better people than they are.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Ancestors
Have you ever noticed that it is generally the same people who talk about the need for incentive to make a man work successfully, who resent the idea of incentive to make a man think successfully?
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Work
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.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Persistence, Perseverance
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Computers
Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Government, Democracy
If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Anger
The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Relaxation, Stress
Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Tolerance
Many a secret that cannot be pried out by curiosity can be drawn out by indifference.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Curiosity
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.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Dissent
Those obsessed with health are not healthy; the first requisite of good health is a certain calculated carelessness about oneself.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Health
Everyone admits that “the truth hurts” but no one applies this adage to himself — and as soon as it begins to hurt us, we quickly repudiate it and call it a lie. It is this tendency toward self-deception (more than any active sin) that makes human progress slow and almost imperceptible.
—Sydney J. Harris
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.
—Sydney J. Harris
The world has always been betrayed by decent men with bad ideals.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Ideals
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.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Pessimism
Just about the only interruption we don’t object to is applause.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Appreciation
Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Being True to Yourself, Wealth
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Repentance, Regret, Remorse, Carpe-diem
If the devil could be persuaded to write a bible, he would title it, “You Only Live Once.”
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Evil
Freud’s prescription for personal happiness as consisting of work and love must be taken with the proviso that the work has to be loved, and the love has to be worked at.
—Sydney J. Harris
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.
—Sydney J. Harris
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.
—Sydney J. Harris
Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify.
—Sydney J. Harris
The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Progress
Man’s unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
—Sydney J. Harris
Topics: Identity
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Midge Decter American Journalist
- Mignon McLaughlin American Journalist
- Jim Bishop American Author, Journalist
- John Mason Brown American Drama Critic
- Dorothy Dix American Journalist
- Howard Cosell American Journalist
- Leo Burnett American Advertising Executive
- Thomas Masson American Journalist
- Robert Quillen American Journalist
- Charles Kuralt American Journalist
Leave a Reply