Quotes from Sydney J. Harris

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

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

Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.

The world has always been betrayed by decent men with bad ideals.

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

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

The best combination of parents consists of a father who is gentle beneath his firmness, and a mother who is firm beneath her gentleness.

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.

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we have stopped saying 'It got lost,' and say, 'I lost it.'

It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, 'the greatest', but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.

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

Any creed whose basic doctrines do not include respect for the creeds of others, is simply power politics masquerading as philosophy.

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

Never let your fears be the boundaries of your dreams. 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.

The reason that truth is stranger than fiction is that fiction has to have a rational thread running through it in order to be believable, whereas reality may be totally irrational.

The severest test of character is not so much the ability to keep a secret as it is, when the secret is finally out, to refrain from disclosing that you knew it all along.

Those who imagine that the world is against them have generally conspired to make it true.

The truest test of independent judgment is being able to dislike someone who admires us, and to admire someone who dislikes us.

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.

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.

Sometimes the best, and only effective, way to kill an idea is to put it into practice.

Why do so many people yearn for an eternal life when they don't even know what to do with themselves in this brief one?