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

Genuine love for a child, it seems to me, must include a desire for his maturity and ultimately his independence. Watching a personality unfold is perhaps the deepest pleasure of parenthood; wishing, or trying, to retard this growth is one of the deepest sins.

— Sydney J. Harris

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

— Sydney J. Harris

I am convinced that an immense number of people who have children should not have them, and do not particularly want them, except as "symbols" of family life. What they want are ideal children, not real ones; and as soon as the real ones show no intention of conforming to the ideal in the parent's mind, they are treated as burdens, shipped away to school or otherwise neglected.

— Sydney J. Harris

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

— 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 than Conformity of Square.

— Sydney J. Harris

Many persons of high intelligence have notoriously poor judgement.

— Sydney J. Harris

Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.

— Sydney J. Harris

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

— 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