Quote

The real heretic is not the atheist or agnostic (who are often decent people) but those who murmur it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as it makes you feel good. This turns religion into a subjective matter, like taste in furnishings, and robs theology of its claim to ultimate truth.

Sydney J. Harris

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Sydney J. Harris
Age: 69 †
Born: 1917
Born: September 14
Died: 1986
Died: December 8
Journalist
London
England
Sydney Harris
Long
Often
Claim
Believe
Makes
Decent
Furnishings
Good
Doesn
Atheist
Murmur
Like
Truth
Claims
Robs
People
Matter
Ultimate
Heretic
Feel
Taste
Agnostic
Feels
Turns
Subjective
Real
Religion
Theology

More quotes by Sydney J. Harris

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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.
Sydney J. Harris
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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?
Sydney J. Harris
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Ninety per cent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves - so how can we know anyone else?
Sydney J. Harris
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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.
Sydney J. Harris
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When a baseball player makes an error, it goes into the record and is published. How many of us could stand this sort of daily scrutiny?
Sydney J. Harris
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The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's leisure.
Sydney J. Harris
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Western civilization has not yet learned the lesson that the energy we expend in 'getting things done' is less important than the moral strength it takes to decide what is worth doing and what is right to do.
Sydney J. Harris
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Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting.
Sydney J. Harris
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The art of living consists in knowing which impulses to obey and which must be made to obey.
Sydney J. Harris
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Men make counterfeit money in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.
Sydney J. Harris
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Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.
Sydney J. Harris
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Perseverance is the most overrated of traits, if it is unaccompanied by talent beating your head against a wall is more likely to produce a concussion in the head than a hole in the wall.
Sydney J. Harris
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Much as a teacher may wince at the thought, he is also an entertainer—for unless he can hold his audience, he cannot really instruct or edify them.
Sydney J. Harris
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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.
Sydney J. Harris
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If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.
Sydney J. Harris
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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.
Sydney J. Harris
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The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face.
Sydney J. Harris
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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.
Sydney J. Harris
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Many people feel guilty about things they shouldn't feel guilty about, in order to shut out feelings of guilt about things they should feel guilty about.
Sydney J. Harris
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Life is, if anything, the art of combination. Of discrimination. Of freely picking one's own personal pattern out of a hundred choices. Not letting it be picked for you—either by the Establishment, or by the Rebels. Conformity of Hip is no better than Conformity of Square.
Sydney J. Harris