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Sam Harris Quotes
born 1967 United States
Samuel Benjamin Harris (born April 9, 1967) is an American author, philosopher, public intellectual, and neuroscientist, as well as the co-founder and CEO of Project Reason. He is the author of The End of Faith (2004), which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction in 2005 and appeared on The New York Times best seller list for 33 weeks, Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), The Moral Landscape (2010), Lying (2011), Free Will (2012), and most recently Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion (2014).
United States Activists Bloggers Critics Essayists Also known as: Harris, Sam, Sam Harris (author)
Random Sam Harris quote
92 quotes
Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.
The End of Faith (2004)
You are not in control of your mind—because you, as a conscious agent, are only part of your mind, living at the mercy of other parts.
Free Will (2012)
The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific notions of martyrdom and jihad that fully explain the character of Muslim violence.
The God that our neighbors believe in is essentially an invisible person. He’s a creator deity, who created the universe to have a relationship with one species of primates – lucky us.
If Jesus does come down out of the clouds like a superhero, Christianity will stand revealed as a science. That will be the science of Christianity.
The principal tenet of Jainism is non-harming. Observant Jains will literally not harm a fly. Fundamentalist Jainism and fundamentalist Islam do not have the same consequences, neither logically nor behaviorally.
Q&A with Sam Harris (2005)
Death is, in some ways, unacceptable.
I don’t know what happens after the physical brain dies. I don’t know what the relationship between consciousness and the physical world is. I don’t think anyone does know.
The illusion of free will... is itself an illusion.
If premarital sex is a sin, who is the victim?
If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?
Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings.
The End of Faith (2004)
I think it [getting a gun] should be like getting a pilot's license. I think you should require training to get a license to have a gun.
The power of psychedelics... is that they often reveal, in the span of a few hours, depths of awe and understanding that can otherwise elude us for a lifetime.
As a source of objective morality, the Bible is one of the worst books we have. It might be the very worst, in fact—if we didn't also happen to have the Qur'an.
To say that I would have done otherwise had I wanted to is simply to say that I would have lived in a different universe had I been in a different universe.
Free Will (2012)
As a general matter, I believe we should be very slow to make conclusions about the nature of the cosmos based upon inner experience – no matter how profound these experiences seem.
Our circumstance is abject, indefensible, and terrifying. It would be hilarious if the stakes were not so high.
The dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists. To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization.
To lie is to intentionally mislead others when they expect honest communication.
Lying (2011)
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