Sam Harris Quotes

146 quotes in 2328 categories

• My concern with religion is that it allows us by the millions to believe what only lunatics or idiots could believe on their own. That's…
• While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its liabilities. Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapable…
• As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the…
• It's not so much religion per se, it's false certainty that worries me, and religion just has more than its fair share of false certainty…
• Spiritual life can certainly follow the pattern one sees in the fake martial arts, with most teachers making nebulous and magical claims that never get…
• Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others,…
• I consistently encounter people in academic settings and scientists and journalists who feel that you can't say that anyone is wrong in any deep sense…
• Many scientists have been drawn to Buddhism out of a sense that the Western tradition has delivered an impoverished conception of basic, human sanity. In…
• Science is the most durable and nondivisive way of thinking about the human circumstance. It transcends cultural, national, and political boundaries. You don't have American…
• To speak specifically of our problem with the Muslim world, we are meandering into a genuine clash of civilizations, and we're deluding ourselves with euphemisms.…
• Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make when in the presence of religious dogma.
• There's no way to reconcile Islam with Christianity. This difference of opinion admits of compromise as much as a coin toss does.
• You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps.
• Almost all our suffering is the product of our thoughts. We spend nearly every moment of our lives lost in thought, and hostage to the…
• Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics. But, clearly, there…
• Religion provides the only story that is fundamentally consoling in the face of the worst possible experiences - the death of a parent, for instance.…
• Any conception of human well-being you could plausibly have, the Taliban patently fails to maximize it.
• Anyone familiar with my work knows that I am extremely critical of all religious faiths.
• In my own case, the most inflammatory statements I have ever made are ones that I have written and remain willing to defend.
• It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.

Browse Sam Harris Quotes by Category