Sydney j. harris quotes

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

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

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

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.

If the devil could be persuaded to write a bible, he would title it, "You Only Live Once."

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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." --

More trouble is caused in this world by indiscreet answers than by indiscreet questions.

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.

The world has always been betrayed by decent men with bad ideals.

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?

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.

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

There is no such thing as an "atrocity" in warfare that is greater than the atrocity of warfare itself.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Self-discipline without talent can often achieve astounding results, whereas talent without self-discipline inevitably dooms itself to failure.

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.

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.

We can often endure an extra pound of pain far more easily than we can suffer the withdrawal of an ounce of accustomed pleasure.

Genealogy: A perverse preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebears were better people than they are.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Marriages we regard as the happiest are those in which each of the partners believes he or she got the best of it.

Every morning I take out my bankbook, stare at it, shudder - and turn quickly to my typewriter.

The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught.

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.

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.

It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest', but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.

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

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

Any creed whose basic doctrines do not include respect for the creeds of others, is simply power politics masquerading as philosophy.

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.

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.

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

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

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."

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

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

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'.

The profound immoralities of our time are cruelty, indifference, injustice and the use of others as means rather than ends in themselves.

Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.

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.

A loser says that's the way it's always been done. A winner says there ought to be a better way.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, his is also one who is permanently disappointed in the future.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The best thing you can give children, next to good habits, are good memories.

Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.

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.

Many persons of high intelligence have notoriously poor judgement.

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

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.

Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify.

"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.

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.

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

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

Why do most Americans look up to education and down upon educated people?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Nobody can misunderstand a child as much as his own parents.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we have stopped saying 'It got lost,' and say, 'I lost it.'

Those obsessed with health are not healthy; the first requisite of good health is a certain calculated carelessness about oneself.

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

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.

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.

Good teaching must be slow enough so that it is not confusing, and fast enough so that it is not boring.

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

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.

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.

We truly possess only what we are able to renounce; otherwise, we are simply possessed by our possessions.

Almost every man looks more so in a belted trench coat.

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

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

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.

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.