Best 162 quotes of Sydney J. Harris on MyQuotes

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

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.

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.

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.

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." --

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.

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

Law is order in liberty, and without order liberty is social chaos.

Just about the only interruption we don't object to is applause.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Many persons of high intelligence have notoriously poor judgement.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Sincerity that thinks it is the sole possessor of the truth is a deadlier sin than hypocrisy, which knows better.

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

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.

"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.