Quotes by Harris, Sidney J.

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

Harris, Sidney J. on age and aging   

"If the devil could be persuaded to write a bible, he would title it, You Only Live Once."

Harris, Sidney J. on evil
11 fans of this quote   

"When you run into someone who is disagreeable to others, you may be sure he is uncomfortable with himself; the amount of pain we inflict upon others is directly proportional to the amount we feel within us."

Harris, Sidney J. on disagreements
5 fans of this quote   

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

Harris, Sidney J. on forgiveness
5 fans of this quote   

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

Harris, Sidney J. on generosity   

"An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run."

Harris, Sidney J. on ideals and idealism
4 fans of this quote   

"Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice."

Harris, Sidney J. on ideas   

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

Harris, Sidney J. on life
5 fans of this quote   

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

Harris, Sidney J. on anger
10 fans of this quote   

"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."

Harris, Sidney J. on argument
3 fans of this quote   

"Perseverance is the most overrated of traits, if it is unaccompanied by talent; beating your head against a wall is more likely to produce a concussion in the head than a hole in the wall."

Harris, Sidney J. on perseverance   

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

Harris, Sidney J. on 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."

Harris, Sidney J. on regret
12 fans of this quote   

"The time to relax is when you don't have time for it."

Harris, Sidney J. on relaxation   

"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."

Harris, Sidney J. on self-conflict
6 fans of this quote   

"Ninety per cent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves -- so how can we know anyone else?"

Harris, Sidney J. on self discovery   

"Good teaching must be slow enough so that it is not confusing, and fast enough so that it is not boring."

Harris, Sidney J. on teacher
6 fans of this quote   

"Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting."

Harris, Sidney J. on tolerance   

"We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice -- that is, until we have stopped saying It got lost, and say, I lost it."

Harris, Sidney J. on adulthood
7 fans of this quote   

"The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers."

Harris, Sidney J. on computers
5 fans of this quote   

"A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future."

Harris, Sidney J. on cynics and cynicism
5 fans of this quote   

"The public examination of homosexuality in our contemporary life is still so coated with distasteful moral connotations that even a reviewer is bound to wonder uneasily why he was selected to evaluate a book on the subject, and to assert defensively at the outset that he is happily married, the father of four children and the one-time adornment of his college boxing, track and tennis teams. "

Harris, Sidney J. on   

"We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice — that is, until we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.” "

Harris, Sidney J. on