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Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.
Sydney J. Harris
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Sydney J. Harris
Age: 69 †
Born: 1917
Born: September 14
Died: 1986
Died: December 8
Journalist
London
England
Sydney Harris
Political
Voting
Witty
Powers
Asking
Ought
Democracy
System
Persists
Whether
Persist
More quotes by Sydney J. Harris
We must become masters of our own actions and attitudes. To let another person determine whether we will be rude or gracious, elated or depressed is to give control of ourselves. The only true possession is self possession.
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
Between the semi-educated, who offer simplistic answers to complex questions, and the overeducated, who offer complicated answers to simple questions, it is a wonder that any questions get satisfactorily answered at all.
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
All significant achievement comes from daring from experiment from the willingness to risk failure.
Sydney J. Harris
Many people know how to work hard many others know how to play well but the rarest talent in the world is the ability to introduce elements of playfulness into work, and to put some constructive labor into our leisure.
Sydney J. Harris
Good teaching must be slow enough so that it is not confusing, and fast enough so that it is not boring.
Sydney J. Harris
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. Harris
This is a lesson mankind has not yet learned. We identify, and stratify, and treat persons largely on the basis of their accidental (physical) characteristics, which have no deeper meaning.
Sydney J. Harris
Our 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.
Sydney J. Harris
The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.
Sydney J. Harris
God cannot be solemn, or he would not have blessed man with the incalculable gift of laughter.
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
Filth is always a sign of weakness - in the mouth of the user and in the mind of the writer.
Sydney J. Harris
The reason that truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction has to have a rational thread running through it in order to be believable, whereas reality may be totally irrational.
Sydney J. Harris
Norbert Blei is a writer the way people used to be troubadours and minstrels, celebrating what he has seen and heart and felt in a deceptively simple style reminiscent of the early Sherwood Anderson. . . . Like Anderson, he is a lover, and his affection invests his writing with a singular charm.
Sydney J. Harris
Never let your fears be the boundaries of your dreams. Happiness is a direction, not a place.
Sydney J. Harris
Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
Sydney J. Harris
Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.
Sydney J. Harris
Nobody can misunderstand a child as much as his own parents.
Sydney J. Harris
