243 Quotes by Sydney J. Harris

A university is not, primarily, a place in which to learn how to make a living; it is a place in which to learn how to be more fully a human being, how to draw upon one's resources, how to discipline the mind and expand the imagination; how to make some sense out of the big world we will shortly be thrown into.

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

The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.

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

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.

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

Usually, if we hate, it is the shadow of the person that we hate, rather than the substance. We 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.

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

Just about the only interruption we don't object to is applause.