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.
About Sydney J. Harris
Sydney J. Harriswas 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.
More quotes from 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.
British American journalist
Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.
British American journalist
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.
British American journalist
The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.
British American journalist
The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s leisure.
British American journalist
The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.
British American journalist
Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
British American journalist
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
British American journalist
Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.
British American journalist
If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
British American journalist
The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
British American journalist
Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, “Why not?” and the other, “Why bother?”
British American journalist
Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.
British American journalist
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.
British American journalist
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?
British American journalist
Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
British American journalist
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.
British American journalist
When we have ‘second thoughts’ about something, our first thoughts don’t seem like thoughts at all – just feelings.
British American journalist
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.
British American journalist
Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.
British American journalist
Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.
British American journalist
A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.
British American journalist
When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’
British American journalist
Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity; yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage.
British American journalist
The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.
British American journalist
Many a secret that cannot be pried out by curiosity can be drawn out by indifference.
British American journalist
People who think they’re generous to a fault usually think that’s their only fault.
British American journalist
Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.
British American journalist
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.
British American journalist
The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, “I was wrong”.
British American journalist
Somebody who never got over the embarrassing fact that he was born in bed with a lady.
British American journalist
Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.
British American journalist
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.
British American journalist
There’s no point in burying a hatchet if you’re going to put up a marker on the site.
British American journalist
The two words ‘information’ and ‘communication’ are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.
British American journalist
Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.
British American journalist
Happiness is a direction, not a place.
British American journalist