Sam Harris Quotes

146 quotes in 2328 categories

• It's simply untrue that religion provides the only framework for a universal morality.
• Moderates want their faith respected. They don't want faith itself criticized, and yet faith itself is what is bringing us all this - this lunacy.
• Strange bonds of trust and self-deception tend to grow between journalists and their subjects.
• The moral landscape is the framework I use for thinking about questions of morality and human values in universal terms.
• Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply a refusal to deny the obvious. Unfortunately, we…
• Human experience depends on everything that can influence states of the human brain, ranging from changes in our genome to changes in the global economy.
• I think there are universal principles that we should want to understand, but that are not necessarily good for us. We could recognise universal propensities…
• It is difficult to think of anything more important than providing the best education possible for our children. They will develop the next technologies, medical…
• It is easy to see what many people, women especially, admire about Sarah Palin. Here is a mother of five who can see the bright…
• It is still fashionable to believe that how you organize yourself religiously in this life may matter for eternity. Unless we can erode the prestige…
• Many of my fellow atheists consider all talk of 'spirituality' or 'mysticism' to be synonymous with mental illness, conscious fraud, or self-deception. I have argued…
• Most people believe that the Creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of their books. Unfortunately, there are many books that pretend to divine…
• Nothing guarantees that reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. It is time…
• Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable).
• The conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum. The success of science often comes at the expense of religious dogma; the…
• 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 that…
• The only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified…
• The wealthiest Americans often live as though they and their children had nothing to gain from investments in education, infrastructure, clean-energy, and scientific research.
• There is no reason whatsoever to think that Buddhism can compete successfully with the relentless evangelizing of Christianity and Islam. Nor should it try to.
• We have Christians against Muslims against Jews, and no matter how liberal your theology, merely identifying yourself as a Christian or a Jew lends tacit…

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