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

—Sydney J. Harris

future cynicism past

About Sydney J. Harris

Sydney J. Harris (September 14, 1917 – December 7, 1986) was 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. He also wrote an...

More quotations from Sydney J. Harris

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

—Sydney J. Harris

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

—Sydney J. Harris

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

—Sydney J. Harris

Many people feel guilty about things they shouldn't feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.

—Sydney J. Harris

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."

—Sydney J. Harris

childhood responsibility adulthood

More quotations tagged with “past”

If you live in the past, you don’t enjoy what is happening right now because you will always wish it to be different than it is.

—Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements

life presence past enjoyment present

The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.

—Wendell Barry

past escape bad creation

Nothing has ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?

—Eckhart Tolle

power presence past

How many people long for that “past, simpler, and better world,” I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?

—R.A. Salvatore

past perception self

And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.

—John Steinbeck

reality gratitude memory past perception bounty

History

8 Sep 2013 Added
21 Nov 2022 Edited (details weren’t recorded yet)