Sam Harris Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  137 Copy quote

• 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

  120 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

  125 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

  107 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

  141 Copy quote

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

  Sam Harris

  Long, Puppets, Strings

  83 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

  61 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

  94 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

  116 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.

  111 Copy quote

• A person who believes that Elvis is still alive is very unlikely to get promoted to a position of great power and responsibility in our society. Neither will a person who believes that the holocaust was a hoax. But people who believe equally irrational things about God and the bible are now running our country. This is genuinely terrifying.

  Sam Harris

  Running, Country, Believe

  9 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

  64 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.

  55 Copy quote

• Theology is ignorance with wings.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Ignorance, Wings

  10 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

  32 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

  20 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

  12 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

  32 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.

  120 Copy quote
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  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 population.

  Sam Harris

  Atheist, Offending, Population

  32 Copy quote

• Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control. We do not have the freedom we think we have.

  Sam Harris

  Thinking, Causes, Intention

  Sam Harris (2012). “Free Will”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

  59 Copy quote

• We are all prisoners of our thoughts.

  Sam Harris

  Prisoner, Our Thoughts

  Sam Harris (2014). “Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

• 120 million of us place the big bang 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer.

  Sam Harris

  Beer, Years, Religion

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.17, W. W. Norton & Company

  27 Copy quote

• Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education.

  Sam Harris

  School, Men, Our World

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.25, W. W. Norton & Company

  14 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.

  25 Copy quote

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