Quotes by Sydney J. Harris

About Sydney J. Harris:

Sydney J. Harris was 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.

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

Somebody who never got over the embarrassing fact that he was born in bed with a lady.

Sydney J. Harris

Many a secret that cannot be pried out by curiosity can be drawn out by indifference.

Sydney J. Harris

People who think they're generous to a fault usually think that's their only fault.

Sydney J. Harris

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

Sydney J. Harris

The generality of mankind is lazy. What distinguishes men of genuine achievement from the rest of us is not so much their intellectual powers and aptitudes as their curiosity, their energy, their fullest use of their potentialities. Nobody really kno...

Sydney J. Harris

Long ago I used to mutter (as you probably do), "Very interesting," and cast a desperate glance around for the punch-bowl. This banal comment fools no one, least of all the artist, and you quickly find you have lost a friend and alienated a roomful o...

Sydney J. Harris

The 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. Harris

At it's highest level, the purpose of teaching is not to teach—it is to inspire the desire for learning. Once a student's mind is set on fire, it will find a way to provide its own fuel.

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 t...

Sydney J. Harris

When a man says "I know what I mean, but I can't express it," he generally does not know what he means—for there can be no knowledge without words; there can only be feelings.

Sydney J. Harris

But the culture-vultures and the intellectual snobs, and the self-appointed guardians of the Muses, often frighten off the average person from the free development of this appetite.

Sydney J. Harris

But in terms of "psychological" time, most of us are still living in centuries past, stirred by ancient grudges, controlled by obsolete prejudices, driven by buried fears.

Sydney J. Harris

The truly terrible thing about the war spirit, about the fear and hate hysteria it generates, is that it forces us to think and talk and feel in terms of abstractions—those "communists" this time, those "fascists" last time. But those we are fighti...

Sydney J. Harris

A winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others; a loser wants to be considered an expert by others before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.

Sydney J. Harris

The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second...

Sydney J. Harris

Much as a teacher may wince at the thought, he is also an entertainer—for unless he can hold his audience, he cannot really instruct or edify them.

Sydney J. Harris

A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.

Sydney J. Harris

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 opposite mistakes with the younger ones.

Sydney J. Harris

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

Sydney J. Harris

Author Bio

  • NameSydney J. Harris
  • DescriptionAmerican journalist
  • AliasesSydney Harris
  • BornSeptember 14, 1917
  • DiedDecember 8, 1986
  • ProfessionJournalist