Sydney J. Harris Quotes

We look at the world through our likes and dislikes, hopes and fears, opinions and judgments. We want everyone to behave as we think they should; otherwise we get agitated. But we are here to accept the world as it is, even as we work to make it better.

Why should I hate someone on the basis of their religion, when I can take a little time to get to know them and hate them for a myriad of real reasons.

I think it just came with me evolving as a person and me understanding that it's not right to judge or to say anything derogatory about other people, especially if I don't know them.

I've told you before. You shouldn't judge people based on appearances and your preconceptions.

To judge someone before understanding that person is a form of human rejection and feeds upon itself. It intensifies personal insecurities, necessitating more judgment (prejudice) and less understanding. The processes continue in this vicious cycle.

I'm not staid and unbiased here. I have certain biases I want to convey, and if you disagree, that's fine.

It may be unfair of me but I do feel I know it.

Trust and belief are two prime considerations. You must not allow yourself to be opinionated.

People will always look different from each other in ways we can't control. What we can control is what we allow ourselves to make of those differences.

Life without prejudice, were it ever to be tried, would soon reveal itself to be a life without principle.

Me can't be prejudice. Me can't me no think of life that way. Because, me figure if you prejudice, that mean you have a hate. If you have a hate inside of you, you can't be righteous.

Let's stop being afraid ... to seem intolerant

I don't want people to judge books by their cover, I want people to be open minded to the rest of the world.

What we are able to judge with feeling is very little; the rest is all prejudice and complaisance.

We make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do. We assume that others think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. This is the biggest assumption that humans make.

Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.

Don't shut down the feedback loop with judgment, rigid beliefs, and prejudices.

Understanding is the beginning of approving.

Stop labeling people just because they're not like you.

What we do not understand we have no right to judge

Everybody has an opinion. I think everybody has the right to believe whatever they want. I don't ever cast judgment on someone's belief system.

I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices or caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being-that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.

Don't look down on them for looking down on us. Look at them, instead, as friends we don't know yet and who don't yet know what they are missing in not knowing us.

Don't criticize what you can't understand.