This is the pattern of gun killings in big cities. Most homicides are not professional jobs, in felonious pursuits, but are committed by relatives, friends or neighbors, in the home or nearby. They are sparked by liquor, by lust, by jealousy, or greed, or a burning sense of injustice. And most are committed by people with no previous record of violence. It is these who will be restrained by stricter gun laws, who will find it much harder to go home, pick up a gun and shoot an adversary. The liquor will pass, the lust will die, reflection will replace passion if the instrument of death is not so readily available.
Sydney J. HarrisMany marriages falter, it seems to me, not because the couples are out of love, but because they have never been friends as much as lovers. They may love each other, in a vaporously romantic way, but they do not really like each other as individual personalities.
Sydney J. HarrisParents should learn to stop nagging their children about how well they could do “if you only tried more, or cared more.” Trying and caring, in specific areas, is built into people; or else it comes to them later, if they mature properly; or it never comes at all. But it is dead certain that no young person was ever motivated by a querulous, disappointed parent more concerned with his own pride than with the child’s ultimate self-actualization.
Sydney J. HarrisLike all persecuted minority groups, they strike back by forming cabals, by “taking over” certain spheres of activity (in the arts, for instance), and by purposely provocative behavior.
Sydney J. HarrisFor most people read not with their minds, but with their emotions and prejudices. They read into or read out of a piece of writing what they want to. And when they disagree, it is usually not with what the writer says, but with what they imagine he said... People filter what they read through the fine strainer of their feelings and preconceptions, their prejudices and fears.
Sydney J. HarrisThis 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. HarrisPatriotism is wanting what is best for your country. Nationalism is thinking your country is best, no matter what it does.
Sydney J. HarrisNinety percent of what we believe has nothing to do with the process of thought, but comes instead from the four sources of family inheritance, individual temperament, national culture, and economic self-interest; and while we cannot wholly cast off these shackles, we should at least recognize their cramping and distorting influence upon the free process of thought.
Sydney J. HarrisThe length of sentences depends upon the criminal’s wealth and type of legal help more than upon the seriousness of his transgression. Court procedures are slow and cumbersome. It is the poor and stupid criminal who gets the heaviest sentences - so the aim of criminals is to become rich and cunning, and thus avoid the harshest penalties.
Sydney J. HarrisIsolation always perverts; when a man lives only among his own sort, he soon begins to believe that his sort are the best sort. This attitude breeds both the arrogance of the conservative and the bitterness of the radical.
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