Sam Harris quotes

We are now in the 21st century: all books, including the Koran, should be fair game for flushing down the toilet without fear of violent reprisal. (Sam Harris)
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? View quote
Sam Harris
The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments, and a passionate unwillingness to do so. View quote
Sam Harris
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. View quote
Sam Harris
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. View quote
Sam Harris
No culture in human history ever suffered because its people became too reasonable or too desirous of having evidence in defense of their core beliefs. View quote
Sam Harris
Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance. View quote
Sam Harris
The moral truth here is obvious: anyone who feels that the interests of a blastocyst just might supersede the interests of a child with a spinal cord injury has had his moral sense blinded by religious metaphysics. View quote
Sam Harris
You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm. View quote
Sam Harris
Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings. View quote
Sam Harris
Atheism is just a way of clearing the space for better conversations. (Sam Harris)
Unreason is now ascendant in the United States-in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 68 percent believe in Satan. Ignorance in this degree, concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower, is now a problem for the entire world. View quote
Sam Harris
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. View quote
Sam Harris
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. View quote
Sam Harris
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. View quote
Sam Harris
Principle #1: Avoid dangerous people and dangerous places. Principle #2: Do not defend your property. Principle #3: Respond immediately and escape. View quote
Sam Harris
From my point of view, compatibilism is a little like saying: a puppet is free so long as it loves its strings. View quote
Sam Harris
Meditation ... puts into question more or less everything you tend to do in your search for happiness. But if you lose sight of this, it can become just another strategy for seeking happiness-a more refined version of the problem you already have. View quote
Sam Harris
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. View quote
Sam Harris
If premarital sex is a sin, who is the victim? View quote
Sam Harris
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)
Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. View quote
Sam Harris
Religious faith is the only area of discourse where immunity through conversation is considered noble. It's the only area of our lives where someone can win points for saying, "There's nothing that you can do to change my mind and I'm taking no state of the world ultimately into account in believing what I believe. There's nothing to change about the world that would cause me to revise my beliefs." View quote
Sam Harris
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. View quote
Sam Harris
Jesus Christ-who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens-can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. View quote
Sam Harris