Best 162 quotes of Sydney J. Harris on MyQuotes

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, his is also one who is permanently disappointed in the future.

A famously wise old man in a village was once asked how he came by his wisdom. "I got it from my good judgment," he answered. And where did his good judgment come from? "I got it from my bad judgment.

Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason.

All our efforts to attain immortality-by statesmanship, by conquest, by science or the arts-are equally vain in the long run, because the long run is longer than any of us can imagine.

All significant achievement comes from daring from experiment from the willingness to risk failure.

Almost every man looks more so in a belted trench coat.

Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity; yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage.

A loser says that's the way it's always been done. A winner says there ought to be a better way.

American parents, on the whole, do not want their sons to be artisans or craftsmen, but business or professional people. As a result, millions of youngsters are being prepared for careers they have little aptitude for - and little interest in except for dubious prestige.

Ancient boundaries are meaningless, except for political purposes; old divisions of clan and tribe are sentimental remnants of the pre-atomic age; neither creed nor color nor place of origin is relevant to the realities of modern power to utterly seek and destroy.

And most of the failures in parent-child relationships, from my observation, begin when the child begins to acquire a mind and a will of its own, to make independent decisions and to question the omnipotence or the wisdom of the parent.

An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.

Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.

A 'penchant for telling the truth' can cripple a candidates chances faster than being caught in flagrante delicto with the governor's wife.

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.

As long as there are human beings, there will be the idea of brotherhood -- and an almost total inability to practice it.

As the horsepower in modern automobiles steadily rises, the congestion of traffic steadily lowers the average possible speed of your car. This is known as Progress.

As WArden Lawes once said of convicts, no man can be called a failure until he has tried something he really likes, and fails at it.

As we grow older, we should learn that these are two quite different things. Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify. Some people have easy temperaments and weak characters; others have difficult temperaments and strong characters. We are all prone to confuse the two in assessing people we associate with. Those with easy temperaments and weak characters are more likable than admirable; those with difficult temperaments and strong characters are more admirable than likable.

At it's highest level, the purpose of teaching is not to teach—it 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.

A truly successful person knows how to overcome the past, use the present, and prepare for the future-but unless we can first surmount the past, we cannot effectively cope with either the present or the future.

A university is not, primarily, a place in which to learn how to make a living; it is a place in which to learn how to be more fully a human being, how to draw upon one's resources, how to discipline the mind and expand the imagination; how to make some sense out of the big world we will shortly be thrown into.

A winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others; a loser wants to be considered an expert by others before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.

A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who forgives you -- out of love -- takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice.

A winner rebukes and forgives; a loser is too timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.

Between the semi-educated, who offer simplistic answers to complex questions, and the overeducated, who offer complicated answers to simple questions, it is a wonder that any questions get satisfactorily answered at all.

But what is significant is that if you don't want to like and accept somebody, one excuse is as good as another. The objective facts don't matter, and the reasons are never as ‘reasonable' as we like to think they are.

By the time a man asks you for advice, he has generally made up his mind what he wants to do, and is looking for confirmation rather than counseling.

Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify.

Christianity is not a "spiritual" religion, like some religions of the east. It is an intensely "practical" religion, having its moral roots in the practicality of judaism. It was not designed to change the way men think or believe as much as to change the way they act.

Confidence, once lost or betrayed, can never be restored again to the same measure; and we learn too late in life that our acts of deception are irrevocable - they may be forgiven, but they cannot be forgotten by their victims.

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.

Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.

Enemies, as well as lovers, come to resemble each other over a period of time.

Every morning I take out my bankbook, stare at it, shudder - and turn quickly to my typewriter.

Every rule in the book can be broken, except one - be who you are, and become all you were meant to be.

Filth is always a sign of weakness - in the mouth of the user and in the mind of the writer.

Genealogy: A perverse preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebears were better people than they are.

God cannot be solemn, or he would not have blessed man with the incalculable gift of laughter.

Good teaching must be slow enough so that it is not confusing, and fast enough so that it is not boring.

Gourmet: Usually little more than a glutton festooned with credit cards.

Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower. A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour. Happiness is a direction, not a place.

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.

Honesty consists of the unwillingness to lie to others; maturity, which is equally hard to attain, consists of the unwillingness to lie to oneself.

If the devil could be persuaded to write a bible, he would title it, "You Only Live Once.

If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, but the perpetual human predicament is that the answer soon poses its own problems.

If you want to know what a man's character is really like... ask him to tell you the living person he most admires - for hero worship is the truest index of a man's private nature.

Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.