If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
Interpretation
The quote suggests that letting small things upset you reflects inner weaknesses or insecurities.
This quote by Sydney J. Harris encourages self-reflection on our emotional reactions. It implies that if trivial matters can provoke significant anger, it brings attention to one's personal vulnerabilities, suggesting that the real issue lies within rather than in external circumstances. Instead of blaming the minor irritations in life, one should examine themselves and their responses to better understand their character and growth potential.
In practice
During a team meeting to discuss workplace challenges.
A person is either himself or not himself; is either rooted in his existence or is a fabrication; has either found his humanhood or is still playing with masks and roles and status symbols. And nobody is more aware of this difference (although unconsciously) than a child. Only an authentic person can evoke a good response in the core of the other person; only person is resonant to person.
We evaluate others with a Godlike justice, but we want them to evaluate us with a Godlike compassion.
The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.
Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
"Terrorism" is what we call the violence of the weak, and we condemn it; "war" is what we call the violence of the strong, and we glorify it.
At it's highest level, the purpose of teaching is not to teachβit is to inspire the desire for learning. Once a student's mind is set on fire, it will find a way to provide its own fuel.
If it can be verified, we don't need faith... Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.
It is my experience that the world itself has a role to play in our liberation. Its very pressures, pains, and risks can wake us up -release us from the bonds of ego and guide us home to our vast true nature.
In the products of the unconscious we discover mandala symbols, that is, circular and quaternity figures which express wholeness, and whenever we wish to express wholeness, we employ just such figures.
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine By which alone the mortal heart is led Unto the thinking of the thought divine.
The greatest dread of ordinary man is death, with its rude imposition interrupting fortuitous plans and fondest attachments with an unknown and unwelcome change. The yogi is a conqueror of the grief associated with death. By control of mind and life force and the development of wisdom, he makes friends with the change of consciousness called death-he becomes familiar with the state of inner calmness and aloofness from identification with the mortal body.
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.