Skip to content

Time Quotes by Sam Harris

58 Time quotes by Sam Harris

All Time quotes Sam Harris’s page

A person wanting to smell smoke before a show shows how strong feelings can shape choices. Harris says faith often replaces reason, giving people a license to believe even when evidence is missing. He also calls mindfulness meditation a simple trick that can help people feel happier in the present moment.

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

It is time we admitted that we are not at war with “terrorism.” We are at war with Islam.

Image

“What evidence could possibly be put forward to show that one could have acted differently in the past?”

Image

Islam, at the moment, is the motherlode of bad ideas.

Image

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

Image

It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.

Image

You almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don't like to publicly…

Image

“Religion is nothing more than bad concepts held in place of good ones for all time. It is denial - at once…

Image

“It is time we acknowledged that no real foundation exists within the canons of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or any of our other…

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

False encouragement is a kind of theft: it steals time, energy, and motivation a person could put toward some other purpose.

Image

That religion may have served some necessary function for us in the past does not preclude the possibility that it is now…

Image

“It is time we recognized that belief is not a private matter; it has never been merely private. In fact, beliefs are…

Image

“If there is any kernel of truth in the religions we so deplore,and they are just a carnival of errors,the truth is…

Image

“The fact that millions of people use the term "morality" as a synonym for religious dogmatism, racism, sexism, or other failures of…

Image

“The popular conception of free will seems to rest on two assumptions: (1) that each of us could have behaved differently than…

Image

The moment we realize that the only things we can intelligibly value are actual and potential changes in the experience of conscious…

Image

If we cannot find our way to a time when most of us are willing to admit that, at the very least,…

Image

“When was the last time that someone was criticized for not "respecting" another person's unfounded beliefs about physics or history? The same…

Image

You are using your own moral intuitions to authenticate the wisdom of the Bible - and then, in the next moment, you…

Image

“The core of science is not controlled experiment or mathetical modeling; it is intellectual honesty. It is time we acknowledge a basic…

Image

“It is time we admitted, from kings and presidents on down, that there is no evidence that any of our books was…

Image

“if, like many people, you tend to be vaguely unhappy much of the time, it can be very helpful to manufacture a…

Image

“There are 1.2 billion people in India at this moment, most of them are Hindus, most of them therefore are polytheists. In…

Image

Missionaries in the developing world waste a lot of time and money (not to mention the goodwill of non-Christians) proselytizing to the…

Image

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

Image

“There is never a moment where I find Trump persuasive. When I look at him I see a man without any inner…

Image

“Clearly, it is time we learned to meet our emotional needs without embracing the preposterous. We must find ways to invoke the…

Image

“Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or…

Image

“Our past is not sacred for being past, and there is much that is behind us that we are struggling to keep…

Image

“This is not (as you have charged) to paint religion with a broad brush. I am very quick to distinguish gradations of…

Image

“This is an empirical claim: Look closely enough at your own mind in the present moment, and you will discover that the…

Image

“Despite the beauty of our world and the scope of human accomplishment, it is hard not to worry that the forces of…

Image

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

Image

How we pay attention to the present moment...determin es the character of our experience and...the quality of our lives.

Image

The moment you shift the conversation to God ... you can pretend to know things you absolutely and obviously cannot know.

Image

“The problem is that most people, most of the time, are desperate to believe ridiculous and divisive ideas for patently emotional reasons,and…

Image

Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs…

Image

We know enough at this moment to say that the God of Abraham is not only unworthy of the immensity of creation;…

Image

“For the first time in my life, I wanted to smell like someone’s smoke. It was Aretha smoke. I decided right then…

Image

It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing…

Image

Other authors on Time

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…