Sydney J. Harris Quotes

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

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Communication, Information

• The beauty of “spacing” children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones – which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Beauty, Children

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

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Education

  Tags in Purpose

• When we have ‘second thoughts’ about something, our first thoughts don’t seem like thoughts at all – just feelings.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in First, Thought

• 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.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Argument

• 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.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Disagreeable

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

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Progress

• There’s no point in burying a hatchet if you’re going to put up a marker on the site.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Point

• When I hear somebody say ‘Life is hard’, I am always tempted to ask ‘Compared to what?’

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Hear

• 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.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Success, Wedding

  Tags in Deserves, Marriage, Believe

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

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Difficulties

• We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice — that is, until we stop saying “It got lost,” and say “I lost it.”

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Duty, Maturity

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

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Regret

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

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Arrogance, Ideas

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

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Education

  Tags in Into, Mirrors, Turn, Purpose, Whole, Window

• 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.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Patriotism, Good, Virtue

• We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until… we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say “I lost it.”

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Adulthood, Childhood

• Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Democracy

  Tags in Elections, Action

• 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.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Integrity/Individuality, Empathy, Acceptance

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

  Sydney J. Harris

  Topics in Computer

Sydney J. Harris (44)

Birth:	14th September, 1917
Death:	8th December, 1986
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Journalist

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Today's Anniversary - 21st January

Births

• 1976 - Kirsty Gallacher
• 1884 - Texas Guinan
• 1941 - Placido Domingo
• 1946 - Johnny Oates
• 1884 - Roger Nash Baldwin

Deaths

• 1870 - Alexander Herzen
• 1932 - Lytton Strachey
• 2008 - Evan G. Galbraith
• 1924 - Vladimir Lenin
• 1997 - Colonel Tom Parker