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
believe mean insanity
It is not only useless, it is harmful, to believe in oneself until one truly knows oneself. And to know oneself means to accept our moments of insanity, of eccentricity, of childishness and blindness.
mean profound use
The profound immoralities of our time are cruelty, indifference, injustice and the use of others as means rather than ends in themselves.
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...
failure mean acceptance
The acceptance of ambiguity implies more than the commonplace understanding that some good things and some bad things happen to us. It means that we know that good and evil are inextricably intermixed in human affairs; that they contain, and sometimes embrace, their opposites; that success may involve failure of a different kind, and failure may be a kind of triumph.
morning quickly stare turn
Every morning I take out my bankbook, stare at it, shudder-and turn quickly to my typewriter.
educational responsibility parenting
We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we have stopped saying 'It got lost,' and say, 'I lost it.'
money men cases
Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.
adulthood childhood line lost passed saying stopped subtle
We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until... we have stopped saying "It got lost," and say "I lost it.
almost complete knowing life ninety people percent strangers woe
Ninety percent 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.
somebody tempted
When I hear somebody say 'Life is hard', I am always tempted to ask 'Compared to what?'
forgiveness forgiving loser
A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.
acceptance tolerance assuming
Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
men likes failing
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.
children independent omnipotence
And most of the failures in parent-child relationships, from my observation, begin when the child begins to acquire a mind and a will of its own, to make independent decisions and to question the omnipotence or the wisdom of the parent.