If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, but the perpetual human predicament is that the answer soon poses its own problems.
SYDNEY J. HARRISOur dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.
More Sydney J. Harris Quotes
-
-
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 -
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 -
The main discomfort in being a middle-of-the-roader is that you get sideswiped by partisans going in both directions.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS -
No one should pay attention to a man delivering a lecture or a sermon on his “philosophy of life” until we know exactly how he treats his wife, his children, his neighbors, his friends, his subordinates and his enemies.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS -
The founder of every creed from Jesus Christ to Karl Marx, would be appalled to return to earth and see what has been made of that creed, not by its enemies, but by its most devoted adherents.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS -
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 -
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 -
Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS -
Life is, if anything, the art of combination. Of discrimination. Of freely picking one’s own personal pattern out of a hundred choices. Not letting it be picked for you-either by the Establishment, or by the Rebels. Conformity of Hip is no better than Conformity of Square.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS -
When we inform, we lead from strength; when we communicate, we lead from weakness-and it is precisely this confession of mortality that engages the ears, heads and hearts of those we want to enlist as allies in a common cause.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS -
The best thing you can give children, next to good habits, are good memories.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS -
And nobody is more aware of this difference (although unconsciously) than a child. Only an authentic person can evoke a good response in the core of the other person; only person is resonant to person.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS -
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.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS -
Those who imagine that the world is against them have generally conspired to make it true.
SYDNEY J. HARRIS -
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







