Maturity begins when we’re content to feel we’re right about something without feeling the necessity to prove someone else wrong. Sydney J Harris
The difference between faith and superstition is that the first uses reason to go as far as it can, and then makes the jump; the second shuns reason entirely – which is why superstition is not the ally, but the enemy, of true religion. Sydney J Harris
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future. Sydney J Harris
The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war. Sydney J Harris
People who think they’re generous to a fault usually think that’s their only fault. Sydney J Harris
Character is something you forge for yourself; temperament is something you are born with and can only slightly modify. Sydney J Harris
Every morning I take out my bankbook, stare at it, shudder – and turn quickly to my typewriter. Sydney J Harris
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. Sydney J Harris
We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice – that is, until we have stopped saying ‘It got lost’, and say, ‘I lost it’. Sydney J Harris
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. Sydney J Harris
Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own. Sydney J Harris