Skip to content

Faith Quotes by Sam Harris

89 Faith quotes by Sam Harris

All Faith quotes Sam Harris’s page

Faith can be a license to believe when reasons fail, allowing ideas to persist without evidence. The author argues that belief is not a private matter and that religious faith often resists correction. A further point notes that unjustified belief has inspired some of the worst crimes in history.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Faith, if it is ever right about anything, is right by accident

Image

The faith of religion is belief on insufficient evidence.

Image

We rely on faith only in the context of claims for which there is no sufficient sensory or logical evidence.

Image

Faith does not offer a strong link between our beliefs and actual states of the world.

Image

Religious faith is the one species of human ignorance that will not admit of even the possibility of correction.

Image

“A belief is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything in a person’s life.”

Image

“...religious beliefs are simply beyond the scope of rational discourse.”

Image

“Faith is like a pickpocket who loans a person his own money on generous terms.”

Image

When the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal…

Image

“Within a religious framework, a belief in free will supports the notion of sin—which seems to justify not only harsh punishment in…

Image

“Given the link between belief and action, it is clear that we can no more tolerate a diversity of religious beliefs than…

Image

“The fact that faith has motivated many people to do good things does not suggest that faith is itself a necessary (or…

Image

I was actually already doing my Ph.D. in neuroscience when September 11 happened. 'The End Of Faith' is essentially what September 11…

Image

“When will we realize that the concessions we have made to faith in our political discourse have prevented us from even speaking…

Image

“Because most religions offer no valid mechanism by which their core beliefs can be tested and revised, each new generation of believers…

Image

[I]t is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of…

Image

“In the best case, notions of God’s love and grace provide some relief—but the central message of these faiths is that each…

Image

On the subject of religious belief, we relax standards of reasonableness and evidence that we rely on in every other area of…

Image

“The concessions we have made to religious faith - to the idea that belief can be sanctified by something other than evidence…

Image

Religious faith is the only area of discourse where immunity through conversation is considered noble . It's the only area of our…

Image

“Moderates in every faith are obliged to loosely interpret (or simply ignore) much of their canons in the interests of living in…

Image

“People of faith tend to argue that it is not faith itself but man's baser nature that inspires such violence. But, I…

Image

The only thing that guarantees an open-ended collaboration among human beings, the only thing that guarantees that this project is truly open-ended,…

Image

It is time we realize that belief is not a private matter. As a man believes, so he will act. Believe that…

Image

“Losing a belief in free will has not made me a fatalist - in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom.…

Image

While believing strongly, without evidence, is considered a mark of madness or stupidity in any other area of our lives, faith in…

Image

“There is no doubt that the United States has much to atone for, both domestically and abroad...To produce this horrible confection at…

Image

“A belief is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything in a person’s life. Are you a scientist? A liberal? A…

Image

“If our polls are to be trusted, nearly 230 million Americans believe that a book showing neither unity of style nor internal…

Image

“For anyone with eyes to see, there can be no doubt that religious faith remains a perpetual source of human conflict. Religion…

Image

“We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common…

Image

The problem I want to talk to you about tonight is the problem of belief. What does it mean to believe? We…

Image

“The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to…

Image

“Our situation is this: most of the people in this world believe that the Creator of the universe has written a book.…

Image

“Your frequent claim that we must understand religious belief as a “social construct,” produced by “societal causes,” dependent upon “social and cultural…

Image

“We must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it.”

Image

“Faith is like a pockpocket who loans a person his own money on generous terms.”

Image

“By contrast, the most monstrous crimes against humanity have invariably been inspired by unjustified belief.”

Image

“Faith is the mortar that fills the cracks in the evidence and the gaps in the logic, and thus it is faith…

Image

“Spirituality must be distinguished from religion—because people of every faith, and of none, have had the same sorts of spiritual experiences.”

Image

Other authors on Faith

More by Sam Harris

“Moderates in every faith are obliged to loosely interpret (or simply ignore) much of their canons in the interests of living in the modern…

There is no question but that nominally religious scientists like Francis Collins and Kenneth R. Miller are doing lasting harm to our discourse by…

We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends…

“Your principal concern appears to be that the Creator of the universe will take offense at something people do while naked. This prudery of…

“As manuals for contemplative understanding, the Bible and the Koran are worse than useless. Whatever wisdom can be found in their pages is never…

About 120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. If our polls are…

“If your golf instructor were to insist that you shave your head, sleep no more than four hours each night, renounce sex, and subsist…

The fact that one can lose one's sense of self in an ocean of tranquility does not mean that one's consciousness is immaterial or…

The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second…

“But the reality of consciousness appears irreducible. Only consciousness can know itself—and directly, through first-person experience.”

“Whether or not one likes Huntington's formulation, one thing is clear: the evil that has finally reached our shores is not merely the evil…

The problem is that religion tends to give people bad reasons to be good.

Muslim moderates, wherever they are, must be given every tool necessary to win a war of ideas with their co-religionists. Otherwise, we will have…

The idea that any one of our religions represents the infallible word of the One True God requires an encyclopedic ignorance of history, mythology,…

“What could possibly cause billions of human beings to reconsider their religious beliefs? And yet, it is obvious that an utter revolution in our…