Sydney J. Harris Quotes
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.
Every rule in the book can be broken, except one - be who you are, and become all you were meant to be.
It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest', but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.
The loner may be respected, but he is always resented by his colleagues, for he seems to be passing a critical judgment on them, when he may be simply making a limiting statement about himself.
Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.
Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
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.
The art of listening needs its highest development in listening to oneself; our most important task is to develop an ear that can really hear what we're saying.
Self-discipline without talent can often achieve astounding results, whereas talent without self-discipline inevitably dooms itself to failure.
The profound immoralities of our time are cruelty, indifference, injustice and the use of others as means rather than ends in themselves.
The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.
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.
Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify.
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?
Many a secret that cannot be pried out by curiosity can be drawn out by indifference.
Any creed whose basic doctrines do not include respect for the creeds of others, is simply power politics masquerading as philosophy.
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.
Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.
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.
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.
When we have "second thoughts" about something, our first thoughts don't seem like thoughts at all - just feelings.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Marriages we regard as the happiest are those in which each of the partners believes he or she got the best of it.
Those obsessed with health are not healthy; the first requisite of good health is a certain calculated carelessness about oneself.
More trouble is caused in this world by indiscreet answers than by indiscreet questions.
Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.
Those who imagine that the world is against them have generally conspired to make it true.
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.
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.
People who think they're generous to a fault usually think that's their only fault.
Genealogy: A perverse preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebears were better people than they are.
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.
Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
