Character Quotes by Sam Harris

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

— Sam Harris

There are a few dogmas and double standards and really regrettable exports from philosophy that have confounded the thinking of scientists on…

— Sam Harris

The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It's really no more inflammatory than that.

— Sam Harris

It's simply untrue that religion provides the only framework for a universal morality.

— Sam Harris

The moral landscape is the framework I use for thinking about questions of morality and human values in universal terms.

— Sam Harris

The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific notions of martyrdom and jihad that fully explain the character…

— Sam Harris

“ONE OF THE most pernicious effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality of human and animal…

— Sam Harris

The moral truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a…

— Sam Harris

“Our system of justice should reflect an understanding that any of us could have been dealt a very different hand in life.…

— Sam Harris

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

— Sam Harris

Almost all our suffering is the product of our thoughts. We spend nearly every moment of our lives lost in thought, and…

— Sam Harris

We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we…

— Sam Harris

There must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science. On…

— Sam Harris

Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds - and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various…

— Sam Harris

Morality must relate, at some level, to the well-being of conscious creatures. If there are more and less effective ways for us…

— Sam Harris

“Most moral relativists believe that tolerance of cultural diversity is better, in some important sense, than outright bigotry. This may be perfectly…

— Sam Harris

“One of the most pernicious effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality of human and animal…

— Sam Harris

How can we encourage other human beings to extend their moral sympathies beyond a narrow locus? How can we learn to become…

— Sam Harris

Our moral reasoning is plagued by two illusions. The first illusion can be called the wag-the-dog illusion: We believe that our own…

— Sam Harris

“The men and women on death row have some combination of bad genes, bad parents, bad environments, and bad ideas (and the…

— Sam Harris

For nearly a century, the moral relativism of science has given faith-based religion--that great engine of ignorance and bigotry--a nearly uncontested claim…

— Sam Harris

It is rather more noble to help people purely out of concern for their suffering than it is to help them because…

— Sam Harris

I consistently encounter people in academic settings and scientists and journalists who feel that you can't say that anyone is wrong in…

— Sam Harris

Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics.…

— Sam Harris

We should reserve the notion of 'morality' for the ways in which we can affect one another's experience for better or worse.…

— Sam Harris