Sydney J. Harris Quotes

In the end, though, I did not kill my sister. She did it all on her own. Or at least this is what I tell myself.

We did what our people do all the time, we told ourselves something we did was right and we found a way to justify it, even though we knew it was wrong.

People feel guilty. And guilt is stymieing. Guilt immobilizes. Guilt closes the air ducts and the veins, and makes people ignorant.

What is the point of abusing yourself with guilt in the first place? If you did make a mistake and act in a hurtful way, your guilt won't reverse your blunder in some magical manner. It won't speed your learning processes so as to reduce the chance you'll make the same mistake in the future. Other people won't love and respect you more because you are feeling guilty and putting yourself down in this manner. Nor will your guilt lead to productive living. So what's the point?

We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.

There was a sentence in your letter that struck me, “I wish I were far away from everything, I am the cause of all, and bring only sorrow to everybody, I alone have brought all this misery on myself and others.” These words struck me because that same feeling, just the same, not more nor less, is also on my conscience.

Few things are as bad as a guilty conscience.

I am suspicious of guilt in myself and in other people; it is usually a way of not thinking, or of announcing one's own fine sensibilities the better to be rid of them fast.

Guilt [is] a tool, rather than a weapon against the self.

It doesn't matter whether I'm judged criminal. I have a great feeling of guilt - I have a feeling that I ran after Hitler like a wildfire without reason. If I can sacrifice my life to make something good, I'd gladly do it.

Every man's conscience is vile and depraved / You cannot depend on it to be your guide when it’s you who must keep it satisfied.

People tell me it's a sin, to know and feel too much within.

It was a haunting feeling, the sort of sensation you get when you wonder whether you are two people, the other of which does things you can't explain, bad and terrible things.

But complex people are never certain that they are not crooks, never certain their passports are quite in order, and are, therefore, unnerved by the slightest thing.

he was trying to convince himself that he wasn't guilty.

I am utterly against any kind of guilt. Remember it always: if you start feeling guilty about something around me, then you are doing it on your own, then you are still carrying the voices of your parents, the priests within you; you have not yet heard me, you have not yet listened to me. I want you to be totally free of all guilt.

Psychologically, we all have that cross to bear when we do shady things.

We are lying to ourselves and to each other. Lying about what? I don't care if we're lying. I am a bad person. I don't care. I don't care what you are.

I sin like crazy, but I protect my people.

Being guilty tends to engender feelings of guilt.

Guilt's just your ego's way of tricking you into thinking that you're making moral progress. Don't fall for it, my dear.

None of my problems come from the people I've killed.

I am much more afraid of my good deeds that please me than of my bad deeds that repel me.

The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There's a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life.

Guilt is the most destructive of all emotions. It mourns what has been while playing no part in what may be, now or in the future.