Sam Harris Quotes

Quotes about:

• If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide that proves they should value evidence. If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument would you invoke to prove they should value logic?

  Sam Harris

  Logical Arguments, Should, Evidence

  123 Copy quote
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  Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?

  Sam Harris

  Loss, Suffering, Family And Friends

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.226, W. W. Norton & Company

  143 Copy quote

• Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn't care to, or he doesn't exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.

  Sam Harris

  Evil, Care, Choose Wisely

  110 Copy quote

• The problem with religion, because it's been sheltered from criticism, is that it allows people to believe en masse what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.

  Sam Harris

  Believe, People, Religion

  140 Copy quote

• While believing strongly, without evidence, is considered a mark of madness or stupidity in any other area of our lives, faith in God still holds immense prestige in our society. Religion is the one area of our discourse where it is considered noble to pretend to be certain about things no human being could possibly be certain about. It is telling that this aura of nobility extends only to those faiths that still have many subscribers. Anyone caught worshipping Poseidon, even at sea, will be thought insane.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Believe, Sea

  Sam Harris (2006). “Letter to a Christian Nation”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

  127 Copy quote

• A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.

  Sam Harris

  Long, Puppets, Strings

  85 Copy quote
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  You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

  Sam Harris

  Free Will, Can Do

  Sam Harris (2012). “Free Will”, p.38, Simon and Schuster

  63 Copy quote

• Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on earth. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report (2005), they are also the healthiest, as indicated by life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate, and infant mortality. . . . Conversely, the fifty nations now ranked lowest in terms of the United Nations' human development index are unwaveringly religious.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Educational, Australia

  Sam Harris (2006). “Letter to a Christian Nation”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

  95 Copy quote

• Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Stars, War

  117 Copy quote

• You don't get anything worth getting, by pretending to know things you don't know.

  Sam Harris

  Pretending, Knows

  "Sam Harris On Death". bigthink.com. July 04, 2007.

  58 Copy quote

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

  Sam Harris

  Character, Quality, Pay

  65 Copy quote

• In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Atheist, People

  "Letter to a Christian Nation". Book by Sam Harris, 2006.

  115 Copy quote

• Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what so ever.

  Sam Harris

  Christian, Cheating, Atheist

  22 Copy quote

• You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.

  Sam Harris

  Storm, Lost

  Sam Harris (2012). “Free Will”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

  18 Copy quote

• 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 character of those thoughts. You can break this spell, but it takes training just like it takes training to defend yourself against a physical assault.

  Sam Harris

  Character, Training, Suffering

  35 Copy quote

• It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.

  Sam Harris

  Religious, Believe, People

  Sam Harris (2006). “Letter to a Christian Nation”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

  35 Copy quote

• People who harbor strong convictions without evidence belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of power.

  Sam Harris

  Strong, Atheist, People

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.225, W. W. Norton & Company

  33 Copy quote

• We do not know what awaits each of us after death, but we know that we will die. Clearly, it must be possible to live ethically-with a genuine concern for the happiness of other sentient beings-without presuming to know things about which we are patently ignorant. Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person you will pass in the street today, is going to die. Living long enough, each will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?

  Sam Harris

  Death, Loss, Genuine Concern

  62 Copy quote

• Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being. Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept.

  Sam Harris

  Our World, Abuse, Might

  "Letter to a Christian Nation". Book by Sam Harris, p. 23, 2006.

  27 Copy quote

• 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, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person's thoughts.

  Sam Harris

  Loneliness, Thinking, Like Love

  "Drugs and the Meaning of Life" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 6, 2011.

  121 Copy quote

• It is rather more noble to help people purely out of concern for their suffering than it is to help them because you think the Creator of the Universe wants you to do it, or will reward you for doing it, or will punish you for not doing it. The problem with this linkage between religion and morality is that it gives people bad reasons to help other human beings when good reasons are available.

  Sam Harris

  Helping Others, Thinking, People

  "Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival" symposium, November 2006.

  54 Copy quote
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  How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.

  Sam Harris

  Brain, Events, Agents

  Sam Harris (2012). “Free Will”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

  61 Copy quote

• The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we will kill you.

  Sam Harris

  Community, Islam, Faces

  "Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks". www.huffingtonpost.com. May 05, 2008.

  43 Copy quote

• Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a thelogically defensible reading of the Bible.

  Sam Harris

  Christian, Reading, Names

  Sam Harris (2006). “Letter to a Christian Nation”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

  24 Copy quote

• This is the true horror of religion. It allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions, what only lunatics could believe on their own.

  Sam Harris

  Believe, People, Religion

  14 Copy quote

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