Sydney J. Harris Quotes

"The truly terrible thing about the war spirit, about the fear and hate hysteria it generates, is that it forces us to think and talk and feel in terms of abstractions — those "communists" this time, those "fascists" last time.
But those we are fighting and killing are people — men, women and children — not political, geographic or economic abstractions. They are, in the main, as decent and fearful and confused as we are. And they regard us as abstractions as much as we do them."

Genuine love for a child, it seems to me, must include a desire for his maturity and ultimately his independence. WAtching a personality unfold is perhaps the deepest pleasure of parenthood; wishing, or trying, to retard this growth is one of the deepest sins.

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.

"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.

If you treat someone under your control like a dolt, he will react like a dolt; treat him like an animal, and he will respond like an animal; treat him as an object of contempt, and he will become filled with a self-contempt that must sooner or later erupt in rage, hate and violence.

Just as communism always begins with an appeal to “humanity” and equality” and ends with inhuman despotism, so does fascism always begin with an appeal to “nationalism” and “individualism,” and ends with a military collectivism far worse than the disease it purports to cure.

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.

Yet, advice on what we can do is usually futile — for we will do nothing except applaud the speaker, accept those ideas of his we already agree with, and reject those ideas that run counter to our prejudices.

When a man's position in life depends upon his having a certain opinion, that's the opinion he will have.

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

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

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.

Don't take life seriously, nobody gets out alive anyway

The man is really looking for self-esteem, and he seeks to find it by winning the esteem of others. In our society, the fastest and surest way to do this is by amassing a great deal of money. So the money becomes a substitute, a symbol, for the esteem.

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.