Winners and losers

A new Sunday series

Winners and Losers by Sidney J. Harris is a collection of short, pithy aphorisms about what it means to be a good person and to live a good life.

Harris was a syndicated newspaper columnist with wide appeal — 180 newspapers carried his daily column “Strictly Personal”. This book appears to be a side project of his that reflects the broader themes of his writing, and was published in 1973 as an obvious rebuttal to the counter-culture movement. Major themes include traditional Christian virtues, personal responsibility, and self-reliance.

My dad had a copy of this book and would often refer to its parables in our daily life. He put so much stock in its wisdom that he purchased over a dozen copies to give as gifts to friends and acquaintances, which is how I got mine. As a child and young man, I enjoyed the very-1968 illustrations accompanying each aphorism more than the little sayings themselves, and didn’t see much beyond the obvious in them. As a grown man and a father, I’ve come to realize this book is one of the things my father was right about. I wish it were more widely known.

Winners and Losers is out of print, Harris is dead, and his work is mostly forgotten. I think that’s a shame, so I’m going to be publishing a few pages at a time every Sunday going forward until I run out. Harris’s estate and publisher retain the copyright on his work.

The book is divided into sections called “Scorecards”. We’ll be starting at the beginning with Scorecard One.

Enjoy.

A winner makes commitments;

a loser makes promises.

When a winner makes a mistake, he says, “I was wrong”;

when a loser makes a mistake, he says, “It wasn’t my fault.”

A winner works harder than a loser, and has more time;

a loser is always “too busy” to do what is necessary.

New additions in this series will be published every Sunday for the next several months, until I run out.