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.
It's not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between.
As society becomes more complex and opaque, as social processes seem more impersonal and autonomous, and as elites of 'experts' become more annoying, more people are tempted to think that some 'they' is manipulating 'us', using, among other dark arts, advertising.
If you get angry easily, it may be because the seed of anger in you has been watered frequently over many years, and unfortunately you have allowed it or even encouraged it to be watered.
In such a fearful world, we need a fearless church
Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek.
Prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned, and chained, is nevertheless the greatest triumph of Puritanism.
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