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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.

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More quotes by Sam Harris

The treatment of women in Muslim communities throughout the world is unconscionable.

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

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

Free Will (2012)

Every time you scratch your nose, you have committed a Holocaust of potential human beings.

Letter to a Christian Nation (2006)

Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.

Letter to a Christian Nation (2006)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Sam Harris (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.