Sydney J. Harris

“If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?”

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

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

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

“Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, 'Why not?' and the other, 'Why bother?'”

“Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.”

“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 op...”

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

“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 no...”

“Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.”

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

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

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