Quotes By Sydney J. Harris

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

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

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

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.

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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