Sydney J. Harris Quotes

A general practitioner is a doctor who treats what you've got; a specialist is a doctor who finds you've got what he treats.

"When a man says "I know what I mean, but I can't express it," he generally does not know what he means — for there can be no knowledge without words; there can only be feelings."

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.

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

The French may be straining the truth in their famous saying that “to understand all is to forgive all”,” but it is certainly true that the more we know of any given person, the harder it becomes to hate him.

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

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.

And our resistance against changing our habits of thought is immense and unrelenting. If we try, briefly, we find it ass vexing and unrewarding as writing a letter with the left hand. What we are used to is comfortable; what is comfortable is good; and what is good is right - this is the unspoken belief of almost all people everywhere. When a scientist, however, tackles a problem that has hitherto seemed insoluble, he abandons all his preconceptions, and all the preconceptions of the past. Only when he begins to question the basic assumptions he has always held can he make an utterly fresh start, unencumbered by the intellectual baggage of the past.

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

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?

The length of sentences depends upon the criminal’s wealth and type of legal help more than upon the seriousness of his transgression. Court procedures are slow and cumbersome. It is the poor and stupid criminal who gets the heaviest sentences - so the aim of criminals is to become rich and cunning, and thus avoid the harshest penalties.

Like all persecuted minority groups, they strike back by forming cabals, by “taking over” certain spheres of activity (in the arts, for instance), and by purposely provocative behavior.

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.

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

Ninety percent of what we believe has nothing to do with the process of thought, but comes instead from the four sources of family inheritance, individual temperament, national culture, and economic self-interest; and while we cannot wholly cast off these shackles, we should at least recognize their cramping and distorting influence upon the free process of thought.