Sydney J. Harris
Sydney J. Harris
Sydney J. Harriswas an American journalist for the Chicago Daily News and, later, the Chicago Sun-Times. He wrote 11 books and his weekday column, “Strictly Personal,” was syndicated in approximately 200 newspapers throughout the United States and Canada...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth14 September 1917
CountryUnited States of America
food credit littles
Gourmet: Usually little more than a glutton festooned with credit cards.
morning typewriters staring
Every morning I take out my bankbook, stare at it, shudder - and turn quickly to my typewriter.
philosophy power-politics doctrine
Any creed whose basic doctrines do not include respect for the creeds of others, is simply power politics masquerading as philosophy.
damage-is-done history-repeats-itself cunning
History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.
decision judgement poor
Many persons of high intelligence have notoriously poor judgement.
mean law miracle
What the ordinary person means by a 'miracle' is some gross distortion or suspension of the laws of nature... but life itself strikes him as commonplace, when in truth a blade of grass or a neuron in the brain is a greater miracle...
simple answers complicated
Between the semi-educated, who offer simplistic answers to complex questions, and the overeducated, who offer complicated answers to simple questions, it is a wonder that any questions get satisfactorily answered at all.
attitude believe men
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.
psychics people minorities
Take away grievances from some people and you remove their reasons for living; most of us are nourished by hope, but a considerable minority get psychic nutrition from their resentments, and would waste away purposelessly without them.
enemy-of-progress enemy progress
The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.
thinking hypocrisy sin
Sincerity that thinks it is the sole possessor of the truth is a deadlier sin than hypocrisy, which knows better.
imagination discipline mind
A university is not, primarily, a place in which to learn how to make a living; it is a place in which to learn how to be more fully a human being, how to draw upon one's resources, how to discipline the mind and expand the imagination; how to make some sense out of the big world we will shortly be thrown into.
independent dislike-someone tests
The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.
integrity evil looks
Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.