“Ninety percent of what we believe has nothing to do with the process of thought, but comes instead from the four sources… — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
“All this, sadly enough, is truer of the more educated, higher-income, professional families. It is here that the competition is the greatest, the expectations most elevated. If the boy would be happier as a telephone linesman or a forest ranger, he is in a hopeless bind. His goals have been set for him by his milieu, and he cannot be… — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share
“I am convinced that an immense number of people who have children should not have them, and do not particularly want them,… — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
“Somebody once said that if many people had not read about romantic love and seen it on the screen, they would never… — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
“And the end of this paradox is that only when the child is thus free can he have the proper attachment to… — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
What is much harder to handle is the sense that you have to live up to the mark someone else has set… — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
“Genuine love for a child, it seems to me, must include a desire for his maturity and ultimately his independence. WAtching a… — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
This is a lesson mankind has not yet learned. We identify, and stratify, and treat persons largely on the basis of their accidental (physical)… — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify. — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, 'Why not?' and the other, 'Why bother?' — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
The profound immoralities of our time are cruelty, indifference, injustice and the use of others as means rather than ends in themselves. — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
Marriages we regard as the happiest are those in which each of the partners believes he or she got the best of it. — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
“...it calls for deciding things on their own merit, not because you read it or were told it or grew up believing it.” — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance. — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
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… — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, his is also one who is permanently disappointed in the future. — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
Time is love, above all else. It is the most precious commodity in the world and should be lavished on those we care most… — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
“The cynic is goodhearted beneath his facade, whereas the sentimentalist is flint-hearted beneath his.” — Sydney J. Harris Copy Share Image
