Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
SYDNEY J. HARRISIntolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
SYDNEY J. HARRISIf 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. HARRISThe 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. HARRISThe severest test of character is not so much the ability to keep a secret as it is, when the secret is finally out, to refrain from disclosing that you knew it all along.
SYDNEY J. HARRISIf you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.
SYDNEY J. HARRISMany people feel “guilty” about things they shouldn’t feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.
SYDNEY J. HARRISThe greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught.
SYDNEY J. HARRISThe best combination of parents consists of a father who is gentle beneath his firmness, and a mother who is firm beneath her gentleness.
SYDNEY J. HARRISAtheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.
SYDNEY J. HARRISThe world has always been betrayed by decent men with bad ideals.
SYDNEY J. HARRISIgnorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.
SYDNEY J. HARRISMan’s unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
SYDNEY J. HARRISWe may hate a person because he reminds us of someone we feared and disliked when younger; or because we see in him some gross caricature of what we find repugnant in ourself; or because he symbolizes an attitude that seems to threaten us.
SYDNEY J. HARRISIt 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.
SYDNEY J. HARRISHappiness is a direction, not a place.
SYDNEY J. HARRISMarriages 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